October at Fountain Lake (Samsung Galaxy S 23)

With the presidential election one week away there is so much wrong with our current national leadership situation.

Ever since the July presidential debate, it has become crystal clear that our current president Biden, is severely impaired and not competent to serve as the most powerful elected official in the world. I guess we should be grateful that his vice president has usurped that position on the presidential ticket.

I am certainly not eager to see Ms. Harris, move into the White House. She is a vacuous, lazy, and ineffective politician who basically slept her way into politics. However, as vice president, she has had a vital responsibility, given the president’s condition. It has been her duty to invoke the 25^th Amendment to the Constitution and begin the process of his removal

The amendment reads: “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

Not only did she ignore her constitutional duty, she lied repeatedly about his condition.

However unpleasant, this duty of the vice president is essential to national security. In many ways, it may be her most important responsibility. But, like most things she has been involved with, she has utterly failed.

I’m not sure why she has ignored this. The process would leave her not only as the nominee, but also the incumbent, and bolster her rather thin political stature. It would show her to be a person of character who will take on difficult tasks for the good of the nation.

Instead, we are left with a bumbling president, whose loathsome and unelected wife is running cabinet meetings.

The decision for Biden to remain, president, is clearly political and undoubtedly calibrated to bolster Democrat prospects in the upcoming. Perhaps they feel that by admitting their concealment of Biden’s condition, they would bring more scrutiny on their four-year cover-up. The party’s decision to prioritize political power over the national interest is another example of their perfidy.

In a nation with a functioning press, the Democrat’s actions in foisting a demented president on the nation and covering up his dysfunction would be a political scandal that should bury the party’s prospects for years to come.

Let us not reward these traitorous acts with any further political power.

I would be honored if you share this post.

For a variety of reasons, I have not been doing much writing, or for that matter photography, for about a year now. I’m not sure what happened, but I think, the absolute deluge of troubling events over the past year or three, has sort of overloaded my psyche, and suppressed my creative muse.

To break this drought, I wrote this hopefully non-controversial piece that was published in The American Thinker on March 24th. I’m not sure that I will remain so diplomatic as we go forward

One of the happy cycles in my life occurs every 3 to 4 years when I drive home in a new vehicle.
However, for me, the current car market is a challenge.

I currently own a great vehicle. It is a 2018 Audi allroad, a small but luxurious station wagon, with a sophisticated all-wheel drive system, and a powerful 2 Liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine.
I have kept it for longer than usual, but I am beginning to be concerned about maintaining this complex automobile once it is out of warranty.
So, why don’t I just buy the new 2024 model?
The problem is, that Audi, like most manufacturers these days, has “gone astray”.

In 2018 when my car was built, Audi was building cars with features controlled with a simple and intuitive driver interface. One could navigate through systems with tactile controls requiring minimal distraction from the road.

For the 2020 model year, the engineers at Ingolstadt decided that touch screens would become the new control method in Audi interiors. Many of the physical buttons were removed. Controls are now in the center screen, activated by pushing on a flat panel without any haptic feedback. In many cases, previously simple tasks are now buried behind several menus.

Recently, my car required service. I requested a similar updated model as a loaner, so I could experience the new interface. Many of the conveniences of my car had been eliminated, and I could find no safe way to quickly activate functions without focusing on the screen and not the road. There was some voice control, but it was an inadequate substitute for buttons. In short, it drove me nuts. So, for me, no new allroad.

Audi is not alone. The sister divisions of Volkswagen and Porsche which had been models of simplicity and logic, have been infected with the same nonsense. In fact, it has spread throughout the industry.

I believe that automobile companies have several motivations. First, touchscreen technology is fashionable, and no one wants to be seen to be falling behind. And I will admit that the aesthetics of these dashboards, and the access to the information, can at times be compelling… If you weren’t trying to drive.

There are also cost benefits, as one might expect. A traditional dashboard requires separate wiring for each manual control circuit. Digital dashboards and controls are configured by programming and can be much less complex to set up. New features can also be added quickly. Touchscreens will also help to facilitate the industry’s new bad idea: automotive options such as heated seats, available only by subscription with monthly payments required.

So, for the first time in my life, I find myself drawn to models that have been in circulation long enough to have traditional control layouts. This typically means cars that are reaching the end of their model run.
One other issue with touchscreen controls is the expense involved in their replacement. These screens control the core functioning of modern automobiles. If they break, the car is essentially “bricked.” I priced, for instance, the 2 screens on my allroad. The instrument cluster screen is very expensive at about $1200). The center screen, where the navigation, audio, and auto systems are controlled is an eye-watering $5500. It could be very expensive to own one of these cars if they are not under warranty. It also begs the question: Who will be able to afford to repair these vehicles in 5-10 years should this technology begin to fail?

As I age, it bothers me to sound like a Luddite, especially with computer technology, with which I am otherwise quite comfortable. I do think however that this technology has demonstrable downsides. Perhaps someday, it will go the way of the “talking cars” of the 80s which disappeared rather quickly. Perhaps voice controls will become a workaround for the crappy interfaces.

To me, touchscreen interfaces, much like the relentless promotion of electric vehicles, are part of a larger pattern in the automotive industry which seems determined to sell to us, things that we do not want. Part of this behavior is due to upcoming government regulations. Despite this, it feels as though the industry no longer has any concern for the wishes of the average consumer. Sadly, but predictably, this philosophy, combined with their rapacious pricing during the pandemic, has sent the industry into a tailspin with plummeting sales and falling prices.
Maybe it is a good time to buy after all.

I would be honored if you would share this with friends.

This article, edited, appeared in The American Thinker on May 16th, 2023

Several weeks ago, on my way to lunch, I stopped at the testing facility in our hospital for my weekly COVID test. This has been a requirement of my employment for at least the last year and a half after I refused vaccination.  The pretty young woman that has been assisting me, collected my sample. She then informed me that the testing facility was closing for good later today.  Subsequently, the hospital administration minimized the requirements for masking within the facility. With these developments, it felt as though the COVID debacle had finally ended.

Reflecting on this, I think back over the 3+ years and cannot escape the profound effect it has had on my life both during the pandemic and now afterward. I have seen death, certainly particularly in older patients and those with comorbid problems. But I have also seen fear and anxiety as a catalyst of social change, and generally not for the good. I have seen factionalism develop over differences in one’s level of vigilance and concern over the disease burden, and later about attitudes towards treatment and vaccination.

I lost friendships. In the beginning it was over the fear of being in contact with me as a caregiver for these patients. Later it was because I invoked natural immunity, and avoided vaccination. I endured their ridicule and even anger about my quaint notions of viral immunity, ideas that would have seemed completely rational, 2 years before.

Now things are changing. Very quietly I think people have grown to accept the notion that this virus was born in the Wuhan lab. It became clear that the draconian lockdowns were of little help, and left a lot of economic, social, and educational damage. They are finally beginning to understand that natural immunity, though not perfect, is likely to be more durable than that provoked by “boosters”.

It is also beginning to sink in, that the vaccines, were untested, minimally helpful and are likely to an extent unsafe, especially for the young. The lack of acceptance of the new bivalent injection I think confirms a new public wariness. Likewise, there has been a pronounced lack of enthusiasm for pediatric inoculation.

But for me, there have been much broader revelations.

As a physician in my 40th year of practice, the events of the past several years have had a profound effect on the way I think of the care I have been rendering.

The CDC, and NIH, manipulated the government, and the willing press, into supporting incredibly corrupt behavior. Prestigious medical journals, such as the Lancet, suspended their usual stringent review processes to publish fraudulent data. The regulatory agencies, and Pharma, acting in concert, punished non-doctrinaire opinions. They manipulated our academic institutions by the issuance and withholding of grant money. Leaders such as the beloved Dr. Fauci promoted phony letters to the editor decrying the lab leak origin story. This was done to protect the NIH and its likely illegal contributions to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research.

Because of all of this, I looked back and wondered about my entire career. Was everything a lie? Were there medications, perfectly adequate, that I was convinced to discontinue in favor of new patented and expensive medications, with less well-understood safety profiles? How many of the other articles that I had read over the years were corrupt documents, meant to bolster the profits of the pharmaceutical industry? Just how badly have I been manipulated?

As a physician, particularly at my age, I have tried hard to remain current with my specialty. But how much of the latest information I absorbed served only to support the lucrative relationship between academic medicine and their sponsors at the pharmaceutical companies.

I never meant to bring too much drama to this pandemic, which I was fairly sure, even early on, would not be as severe as the doomsayers predicted. But I failed to anticipate the more profound interpersonal, economic, and professional impacts it would have on my life and that of others.

There is a punch line here. Despite being completely asymptomatic, and despite the fact, that months ago, the CDC declared random testing to be useless my last test was… positive.

Feels like a fitting end for this nonsense…at least for now.

I would be honored if you shared this.

Header image: After the Fire (Fujifilm X100V)

This article appeared in The American Thinker on 7/21 2022

The FDA is broken. In a three-year span, they have morphed from a regulatory agency that set the standard for the world, to an illogical, incompetent, and apparently corrupt organization running interference for Big Pharma. Three of their recent inane decisions illustrate this metamorphosis.

It is understood, that the current inoculations for Covid 19, are no longer functional as vaccines. At best, they might be attenuating the severity of infections. Dr. Fauci himself recently acknowledged this.  It has been accepted over the years that coronaviruses make poor subjects for vaccines given their tendency to mutate rather rapidly. If there was any doubt of this, SARS co-V2 has proven this tendency.

It’s one thing for the vaccines to be ineffective. It is entirely another problem that they are, by the CDC’s own data, responsible for more adverse effects, and deaths in the 18 months they have been in use, than all of the 26 other vaccines monitored for the last 30 years.

A functioning FDA would recognize this and put a halt to the current vaccines which are not only dangerous but designed for a virus that essentially no longer exists. In fact, the drug companies themselves are talking about the fact that need an updated vaccine for the omicron variants. The vaccine they propose will target the first omicron variant, which has since mutated to multiple new sub-variants.

But these vaccines are huge profit centers for the pharmaceutical industry. So the FDA continues this charade.

Instead, the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee recently voted 21/0 to approve the use of the current ineffective vaccines, to immunize children between six months and five years of age. This is a group for whom the risk of significant illness and death from Covid 19, is near zero.

The FDA used to maintain strict oversight over the vaccine industry. This is why would take roughly 5 years to move the vaccine to “approved” status. It takes time obviously for long-term safety data studies. But because of this, vaccine safety in the United States was impressive. And also because of this, it was impractical to even think about vaccinating for rapidly mutating organisms.

Now we approve vaccines in about six months. And vaccine safety has done to hell

The current FDA also voted on new vaccine proposals from Pfizer and Moderna. They have proposed a bivalent vaccine that includes mRNA code for protein specific for omicron. The committee voted 19 to 2 to approve this essentially as a modification of the existing products. The drug companies stated that they can probably make the product available by October. So once again, we create essentially a new vaccine that includes different mRNA coding for different proteins, one we may be compelled to take, with none of the previous precautions that kept us safe. We already know how that turns out.

Finally, we have another of Pharma’s favorite tools, the emergency use authorization. According to the FDA, an EUA is granted when “there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives”. Here the FDA has completely lost its way. In this case, they inexplicably granted emergency authorization to Novavax’s new Covid vaccine. They did this despite the fact that there are already two formally approved vaccines. Not that we’ve never seen these vaccines, because contrary to their own rules, the FDA continues to permit Pfizer and Moderna to distribute their unapproved products which are still being given under their EUA. Conveniently, this preserves the legal immunity for the two pharmaceutical giants.

 I have nothing against the Novavax product. It uses a more time-tested technology and it might even be a little safer than the mRNA vaccines. Unfortunately, it still involves the spike protein (which is arguably toxic), it is still targeted at the original coronavirus and it also seems to cause myocarditis in young men.  There was absolutely no reason for it to be rushed into service.

Regulatory capture is an economic theory that regulatory agencies may come to be dominated by the interests they regulate and not by the public interest. The result is that the agency acts in ways that benefit the interests it is supposed to regulate. Certainly, the FDA appears to be behaving in a way that brings this theory to life. With behavior that is this egregious, it is impossible to trust in the medications and vaccines that the agency approves. For this physician, this is a national crisis.

Covid 19 was never a good candidate for a vaccine strategy. Undoubtedly the pharmaceutical industry understood the science, but also could not resist the potential for an enormous profit. And I think they knew the FDA would play along.

Boy, did they ever.

I’d be honored if you would share this post.

It is been a year and 11 months since the happy little packet of spike proteins and mRNA arrived in our country courtesy of Dr. Fauci and the Chinese Communist Party.

So here’s a little schadenfreude for my naysayers: yesterday, I was diagnosed with what I suspect is Omicron. In my case, it started with very subtle bronchitic symptoms at the end of the day on Tuesday. Walking out to my car from work, I suddenly felt an unexpected sense of fatigue for that time of day. Suspicious, I went straight home, and grabbed a home test kit. That first test was negative.

Overnight I felt chilled and achy but took some Naprosyn which improved my symptoms. The next morning I retested and was unequivocally positive.

Since then, my main symptoms have been that of a rather annoying viral respiratory infection. There is some fatigue, a modest cough, but a lot of upper respiratory congestion and sneezing. Yesterday, at least in the morning, the symptoms might have prompted me to call off work (as if I weren’t busy) even without the quarantine requirements of Covid-19. Today I feel better. Symptomatically I would’ve gone back to work, albeit with a little self-pity.

Unfortunately, this is SARS CO-V2. The 10 day period of isolation will encompass Christmas, and disrupt plans to gather with family, and otherwise socialize. This arbitrary number is annoying given that I can easily retest when I become asymptomatic and prove I’m not shedding virus.

In my case, I can see why this variant spreads so efficiently. Omicron infects preferentially the tracheobronchial tree, versus the alveoli (lung tissue) in earlier viruses. It thus causes more cough and sneezing symptoms which help to aerosolize and spread the viral particles. Given this, however, it is much less likely to cause issues with “gas exchange” and thus hypoxia and respiratory failure. This seems to have so far borne out both in South Africa and now Great Britain.

I have been taking again the cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, and azithromycin, given the unavailability of Ivermectin. I’m also taking zinc, vitamin D, and a B complex supplement in addition to my usual medications.

Obviously, my situation will not be universal, and some people, particularly people with lung disease, will have more problems. But in reading reports in countries where omicron has become dominant, this is a fairly typical presentation. From my point of view my experience is nothing to get excited about. We’ll see what happens but, three years ago, if such an illness were spread in the community, I would probably notice an increase in exacerbations in my asthma and COPD patients. I have seen this kind of outbreak many times before Covid. The general public is typically unaware.

Omicron has definitely changed the game. There is an international study in preprint, detailing the mutational change in the virus, and its ability to escape immunity, both natural, and vaccine-induced. Here is an article in Forbes that nicely summarizes the study’s findings. In short, the spike proteins have mutated to cling more tightly to the ACE-2 receptors in the respiratory tree, which may explain the preference for the upper airways. Natural immunity also has been thwarted by these new mutations. This was studied by using convalescent serum.

It is interesting to look at the vaccines in detail. Pretty much all of the vaccines lost efficacy against the virus two weeks after the last injection. By three months post the third injection, the vaccinated were susceptible to Omicron. It is interesting to me that the most durable vaccine appears to of been the one offered in China by Sinopharm, which, by the way, is a traditional attenuated live viral vaccine. This means people are vaccinated against the whole virus, rather than just the spike protein.

Parenthetically, according to Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA vaccine technique, traditional vaccines take much longer to produce. China appears to have gotten it done in record time. I wonder whether they had a “head start”

To me, all of this suggests several conclusions:

#1. With Omicron we are essentially back to square one in terms of immunity. Thank God it isn’t particularly virulent. Hopefully, this will be a trend.

#2. As with multiple efforts with coronaviruses in the past, vaccination is not a practical solution, and ought to be deemphasized.

#3. It’s time to turn to therapeutics, which are less likely to be affected by mutations.  We need Ivermectin to be freed up for use. The promising new antiviral from Pfizer, Paxlovid, has just been granted an Emergency Use Authorization but is unlikely to be widely available for some time. Unfortunately, from their own data, Merck’s drug Molnupivinir, may not be particularly useful.

As I have said before, this virus and its variants are becoming endemic in the population. Any expectation that you will not be infected, or re-infected, is likely unrealistic.

And for my vaccine-devoted, Fauci-worshiping critics, enjoy your opportunity to revel in my illness.

Your turn is coming.

As always, I’d be honored if you’d share.

Header Image: Tracks on the Back Pond (Fujifilm X Pro 1, XF 18-55mm f2.8-4)

This is an article I wrote for The American Thinker.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/who_isnt_getting_infected.html

It has been a year and 5 months since we first experienced the work product of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  I must admit, that if you would have asked me on March 16, 2020, the date we originally locked down, I would have assumed the issue of the virus would be well and truly over by this time.  It looks like I underestimated things. 

It appears that we are expected to become overwrought with each new variant. Unfortunately, there are 24 letters in the Greek alphabet. We are only on #4. 

Given that this is the end of Summer, we are dealing with controversies regarding school openings.  School boards were in a difficult position.  They were stuck trying to placate both sides of a fierce debate.   In general, it seems logical to let individual districts, with the input of parents, decide the issue.  

 Though it is unclear to me that masks do anything in the school environment, the decision to require them should be made based on the case burden locally.  What is appropriate for a rural district in, for instance, Potter County may be very different than an urban school district in Pittsburg.   

Now, the state Department of Health has stepped in and mandated masks for all schools in the state, taking the decision out of local hands.  I am sure school boards everywhere are sighing in relief. Still, this seems like Harrisburg overreach…again. 

The CDC has recently announced guidelines that support masking children in schools. They are citing an observational, retrospective study they sponsored, using data from multiple school districts in Georgia. 

The study was conducted on data from November and December 2020, prior to vaccine availability. It showed that improving ventilation in schools and the masking of teachers and staff (i.e.: adults, who are more susceptible to infection) resulted in a decreased incidence of infection. Improved ventilation as it turned out was statistically the much more effective intervention. It was a sloppy study with a lot of inconsistencies which reduces the power of the data. 

 Here is a paragraph from the article’s conclusion:  

 In the current study, the lower incidence in schools requiring mask use among teachers and staff members is consistent with research on mask effectiveness (6), and investigations that have identified school staff members as important contributors to school-based SARS-CoV-2 transmission (7). The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional.  

Now, with teachers likely vaccinated, I’m not sure this data is valid. As evidence, this seems like a very “thin gruel” to require masks for entire student populations. 

Let’s turn now to a curious set of facts surrounding the FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine.  It turns out that the current product, the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine, is not legally the FDA-approved product.  That vaccine is the Pfizer “Comirnaty” vaccine.  The original vaccine is still under “emergency use authorization”.  Interestingly, very little of the new product has been manufactured, but there is plenty of stock of the Pfizer/BioNTech product, which will continue to be given.   

Why would this be, you ask?  Well, remember that these vaccines have had a significant number of adverse events according to the VAERS data. The older product under EUA is immune from legal action, whereas Comirnaty recipients can sue Pfizer for any complications. 

I’m not trying to discourage vaccine use.  Again, let me say that I believe each person, with the input of their physician, should make this decision based on their particular risk-benefit ratio. 

Pfizer is obviously manipulating the situation, which doesn’t surprise me. I do find it very disturbing that the FDA seems to be cooperating with its efforts.  Pfizer clearly benefits from the P.R. generated by the approval without giving up its legal immunity. 

This manipulation also works for those in government that seek to mandate vaccinations.  Meanwhile unknowingly, we will still receive a product that is still experimental.  

Interestingly, two of the most senior people in the FDA involved with vaccine approval just suddenly resigned. Apparently, they were very unhappy with the rushed vaccine approval. 

 More to come on that, I suspect. 

Finally, I once again return to the matter of natural immunity.  2 articles caught my eye recently.  The first is an immunologic study from Cell Reports Medicine. This looked at the immune responsiveness over time (8 months) to Covid in 254 subjects who had contracted the disease early in the pandemic.  They studied serial blood samples, measuring antibodies and other immunological markers. They conclude that: Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients. 

Then there is a very large study in preprint from a group in Israel. They studied data from 700,000(!) patients. The study looked at recent infections with the delta variant. It compared those with natural immunity without vaccination, natural immunity with a subsequent dose of vaccine, versus Covid-naïve patients who have been vaccinated. All the previous Covid infections or vaccinations were in the January/February 2021 timeframe. 

  They came to several conclusions.  #1.  Vaccinated Covid-naive patients were 13 times more likely to have a breakthrough infection with the delta variant, than those with natural immunity. They were 27 times more likely to get significant symptoms.  Those results were among patients who had been infected in January–February 2021.  They then looked at a broader group of previously infected subjects whose illnesses go back as far as March 2020.  Those patients were still at an advantage with 5.7 times more infections in the vaccinated group.  They did find that a single dose of vaccine (Pfizer) seemed to have a slightly positive effect on those with previous infections but the data did not reach statistical significance.  

Still, with more and more data reinforcing the strong immunity of recovered patients, the CDC and the NIH ignore the issue and want to mandate “the jab” for the recovered. It is important to remember that the incidence of side effects of these vaccines is much higher in those previously infected. Those of us who are in that situation clearly have no ethical obligation to be vaccinated and are rightfully wary to do so. 

By the way, very quietly in the last week or so, the CDC changed its definition of vaccination. Here’s what things look like in late August:

Here’s what it looks like now:

One last topic. It is become fashionable among my vaccine-obsessed friends to use the term” horse wormer” to describe ivermectin. I believe this was pioneered by Rachel Maddow to mock its use. Ivermectin is a WHO essential medication, given to literally millions of people for treatment of parasitic infections. It is very inexpensive and very safe. Obviously, it is also used in veterinary circles.  

It has been known for some time to have antiviral properties.  There is now a significant amount of data to suggest that it is useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of Covid 19. I’ve been easily able to acquire the tablet form at my local pharmacy. The problem is medical boards that are suppressing its use, in concert with the NIH and Pharma. Remember, if Ivermectin works, there’s no EUA for any vaccines, per CDC policy.  

Interestingly, I understand Pfizer and Merck are coming out with a ”Covid treatment pill”. This will be on-patent, and likely fairly pricey. I wonder if they’ll call it Newvermectin.

It’s just a thought. 

If there is an overriding theme to this post, and to my previous posts, it is that this very real pandemic, has resulted in the unmasking of the players: public health authorities, and big Pharma who are not working for our welfare but for their own. They manipulate facts, ignore others, and create rules meant to increase their power and wealth, often at our expense. They deny us early treatment despite the data supporting it. Their partners in the media assist in their subterfuge. As a physician, this has caused me to question almost everything I have happily gone along with in the past. The scales have fallen off my eyes. 

I believe our best bet is to study closely the real data, to utilize vaccines, and medications when they will be efficacious, and remain very skeptical of the “facts” as presented, by government health agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry. 

Quite honestly, we’re on our own. 

As always, I’d be honored if you’d share this post.

Header image: Monarch Feeding (Fujifilm XE4, XF 55-200 f3.5-4.8)

It is been a year and 5 months since the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the last week, the false promise of vaccination fed to us by government health officials have been proven to be a lie. And who is the whistleblower? It is none other than the “Dean of gain of function” Dr. Anthony Fauci himself. And he accomplished this with one statement which has gone on to have multiple impacts.

The good doctor had been trying to explain the CDC’s recent update on masking, reintroducing the practice. He made this statement in an interview with NPR:

“The fact that you have a high level of virus in the nasal pharynx of an infected person who has a breakthrough, namely was vaccinated but had a breakthrough infection, and is now capable of transmitting that infection to an uninfected person, that is the thing that is a bit alarming in the sense of triggering the change in the guidelines that the CDC.”

This has multiple implications. It is true the current vaccinations reduce somewhat people’s chances of contracting COVID-19. But the delta variant may be more resistant than previous strains.

There are and were always going to be breakthrough infections. After all, this is a coronavirus, and for the most part, people get re-infected multiple times during their lives. What the vaccine consistently seems to do, is to protect us against severe disease and keep the infection minimally symptomatic, like a cold. Well, that is certainly useful.

But we have been harangued by the government, that we must obtain the vaccine for the good of humanity; to stop the pandemic and prevent the spread to our fellow man. We now have both governmental and private entities demanding that you be vaccinated if you are to go to their school, work at their facility, or even patronize their business. All of this is said to be for the greater good.

Pardon my French, but given Fauci’s statement, that is total bullsh*t.

If there is a significant breakthrough of this newest variant (between 10 and 40% of new cases), then that concept is now dead. The virus admittedly reduces new infections but does not in any way eliminate them. It’s beginning to look like the main benefit of the vaccine is to the vaccinated person only. It facilitates a mild infection which can lead to more complete natural immunity. In the process of that, however, the breakthrough cases can still spread the virus to others.

Thus, the decision to get “the jabs” is really no one’s business but one’s own. If vaccinated patients can get high titer infections often enough to require re-masking, then there is really no public health issue.

And of course, multiple studies show that vaccinating those with natural immunity confers no benefit. Still, our leaders insist.

There is another interesting twist to Dr. Fauci’s statement. In the months surrounding the vaccine release, I watched a podcast featuring a molecular biologist who was being interviewed. As I recall she was extremely well credentialed and talked about 2 potential problems with the proposed vaccines. She discussed the potential for autoimmunity for which there was a fairly widespread concern. She also discussed a phenomenon that can occur after taking the vaccine that could actually make your next infection worse. Because it was a single source, I did not write about this but filed it in my memory.

When Dr. Fauci described high nasopharyngeal titers in both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients alarm bells went off for some in the virology community. Enter Dr. Robert Malone, a physician/pathologist, and vaccinologist who apparently was involved in the development of mRNA vaccine technology. Speaking on Steve Bannon’s podcast he explained that Fauci’s statement was very concerning.

He explained that it is difficult to create vaccines against certain viral types including RSV, the dengue virus, and coronavirus. One of the issues is something called “antibiotic-directed enhancement”. This is a process that apparently occurs particularly when the vaccine effects begin to wane (as may be happening with the Pfizer product). The patient contracts the illness, but only a modest number of antibodies then attach themselves to the virus. This is followed by so-called killer cells (monocytes and macrophages) which attach to the antibodies and destroy the virus. Here’s a very detailed and balanced look at this effect (written this January, before Delta).

If, however, ADE occurs, then the virus can actually invade the monocytes and macrophages, reproduce within them, and destroy their functionality. This leads to much higher viral titers and a much more severe illness. Dr. Malone is concerned that the fact that vaccinated patients having such robust viral loads could mean that this is occurring with the Covid vaccines.

This process can be confirmed by measuring the serum viral titers in groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated patients to check for this “enhancement” effect in the vaccinated. If this is indeed a problem, he claims that the use of the products involved should be discontinued. This has occurred in the past in both human and veterinary vaccine trials.

There has always been a cheaper, and more elegant way to “herd immunity”. There is more and more data to confirm the efficacy of inexpensive, safe, repurposed medications such as hydroxychloroquine and particularly Ivermectin to decrease the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19. Using these drugs in protocols to treat patients could potentially have significantly reduced hospitalizations and saved many lives. It also would’ve led to more durable and complete immunity for our population.

Unfortunately, though, it would’ve interfered with Big Pharma’s bottom line, so we, the people lose.

It’s time for everyone to examine the facts and think for themselves. Our government officials are now flailing around in their own web of ignorance and lies.

Be your own best advocate.

As always, I’d be honored if you would share.

Header image: August on the Nescopeck( Samsung Galaxy S20 5G UW)

It is week 55 of curve-flattening Soviet-style regulation spawned and nurtured by our Governors. Despite our increasingly recovered and/or vaccinated population, there continues to be devotion to the illogical rituals that cannot protect us from an increasingly impotent pathogen. The anxiety goes on, prodded when necessary by our “betters” who continue to stoke terror among their vassals.

A flagrant example could be observed in the behavior of our new CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. She comes to the job seemingly well-qualified, having been a former head of the infectious disease department at Massachusetts General Hospital. Credentials, however, can be misleading.

Speaking at a Coronavirus task force briefing on March 29th, she spoke about her “feeling of impending doom”. She monologed about the horrors she experienced caring for patients presumably in the early stages of the pandemic.

Her voice cracking, she spoke of her experiences worrying about the availability of ventilators and PPE’s, and horrified about the extra morgue set up at her hospital. She forgets to mention, that these issues never really germinated. Looking frightened she blubbered: “Right now I’m scared” alluding to the possibility of a fourth surge.

Unbelievably, she admitted this was just her feeling and not based on data. She urged the country to continue with current measures. “We’re so close now”. Wait a minute. If we are “so close”, then why the “impending doom”?

I assume she was reacting to multiple states that shortly before, had decided to partially or completely eliminate their coronavirus restrictions.

I have never heard more unprofessional statements from a director at this level. Her histrionic comments were grossly inappropriate, and I think disqualifying. Her words seemed to be an absolutely shameless attempt to reinforce fear within the populace.

At one time I thought I understood the rationale for this behavior. Provoking panic would help to destroy the Trump economy, leading to his replacement. Now, with the orange man gone, the motivation now would seem to be about control, and in some cases, profit.

There is a video available by a fellow by the name of James O’Keefe who runs an investigative outfit called Project Veritas. Their M.O. is to infiltrate largely liberal organizations and do hidden camera interviews exposing their actual agendas. This week he released a video of a CNN technical director, apparently in a tavern, speaking off the cuff.

A big part of this conversation was about Covid. He implied that they were deliberately hyping the situation because it was good for ratings.

He asserts that the powers that be at CNN are worried that there will be eventually “Covid fatigue” and that the fear will dissipate. When it does, they’re ready with their next “focused issue” which, they have decided will be “climate change”. This was specifically chosen as a fear generator because the CNN leadership feels it will have a longer lifespan than the current focus on the pandemic.

In essence, they will use the threat of “global warming” will be used to drive viewership.

They’re doing this, as he puts it, because “Fear sells”. All this from an editor at CNN “the most trusted name in news”.

Meanwhile, perusing the data for the individual states on the Time magazine website, it appears that throughout the country, even in former hotspots such as California, cases, and deaths have dropped precipitously.

Here in Pennsylvania, our numbers are down significantly from December and are oscillating week by week. In Texas, more than 3 weeks after the state opened up, their case numbers continue to fall.

My prediction is, that regardless of our control measures, we are likely to see the numbers in the northeast to be relatively stable until fall. People in the south, however, driven indoors by the heat are likely to see a summer surge, similar to last year. Hopefully, as we begin to approach some level of herd immunity, the morbidity and mortality numbers will be blunted.

I want to acknowledge our governor’s resonable decision to reopen the economy in the last week. Hopefully, the executive branch realizes the lack of linkage between the degree of restrictions, and the “case” numbers (positive PCR tests).

Currently, the available vaccines are a topic of interest. in the last several months, I’ve seen commentary from several molecular biologists who have been concerned that the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) have the potential not only to code for the coronavirus spike protein but actually become incorporated in the host DNA. There is some thought that this may be one reason why people have been seen to test positive by PCR, even after they’ve been immunized.

I’ve now encountered a paper in preprint (not yet peer-reviewed) from Harvard and MIT scientists. They have shown, in cell culture that mRNA in vaccines actually will incorporate into an exposed cell’s DNA. This could lead to a variety of problems including autoimmune disease and an over-aggressive immune response after future Sars Cov-2 exposure. Though I don’t think this scant data justifies abandoning the Pfizer and Moderna products, it certainly bears further investigation.

Now, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been put “on hold”. This due to some incidence of abnormal blood clotting, particularly in young women. These incidences involved clotting in the brain, and the legs, and involve a mechanism that means the traditional anticoagulants such as heparin can actually make things worse. Still, it’s a very small number of incidents in the large population of vaccinated patients. It’s important in this situation to tease out the women that are on birth control, particularly those that smoke, as they have an independent risk for clotting.

So what should we make of this? For myself, having been infected, I consider myself immunized and not currently seeking the vaccine. There is plenty of literature to support this position. If I were compelled to be vaccinated (which I would deeply resent) I would probably go with the J and J inoculation as I am not currently a young woman.

Meanwhile, it’s time to go out, have a few beverages and reconnect with friends. Maybe I’ll cook some barbeque.

Be careful… but have fun.

As always, I’d be honored if you’d share

Header Image : Random Daffidils (Samsung Galaxy S20)

Smartphone fine art photography? After two months with my Samsung Galaxy S 20, I have to admit it appears to be a real option. Though I am not sure, that all of my work qualifies as “fine art” I would say that in 2021, a state-of-the-art phone camera module is no longer severely limiting.

I’m writing this follow-up article to demonstrate what I’ve been able to capture with my new phone.

First, let me say that these images are not all intended to be jaw-droppers. Some of them were shot rather specifically to reveal the sensor’s abilities/limitations. Others were shot with somewhat higher aspirations Hopefully, they are somewhat pleasing.

In 2015, Samsung introduced a brand-new line of cameras called the NX series. It was Samsung’s first foray into a mirror list interchangeable lens camera, and it hit the market with a splash. It was beautifully constructed, extremely well-featured, and came with very fine newly designed lenses.

Most interestingly, it also featured a Samsung-manufactured, very high-quality 28-megapixel sensor. This was shockingly competitive with sensors made by the dominant manufacturer’s Sony and Canon. It was for a time, highly promoted. Samsung hired a number of very well-known photographers for this purpose. I shot with a loaner camera at a photo expo in Seattle and was very impressed.

Then suddenly, the Samsung NX series was no more. Apparently, Samsung decided that cameras “weren’t their bag” and they dropped the product line rather abruptly. It’s actually a shame because there was clear potential for this product.

Apparently, they didn’t forget how to make sensors. As you saw perhaps in the last article I wrote about the S20 weeks ago, despite the diminutive size and tiny pixels, it can produce very high-quality files. Given this, I decided to keep it in service.

For the most part, I shot it entirely in raw which is available in “pro” mode. Shot this way the camera produces a .dng file in a 4/3 format and a wide format JPEG. The latter is processed by the phone’s software. Very typically the results of the processing are fairly pleasing and pleasant to look at on the small screen. Details in the JPEG files are definitely smoothed out by the processing and don’t appear useful for anything beyond digital display.

In early March my wife and I spent a week in the Adirondacks. I brought my typical travel kit including my Fujifilm X100V and my XE3 with a variety of lenses. I never got them out of their bags. When skiing or snowshoeing, I would merely take my small Manfrotto tripod and the smartphone mount, and shot with the Samsung exclusively. I have been doing that ever since, in part with this article in mind.

I have to say that I didn’t really miss my Fujis. Part of this, however, is that I’ve been photographing the high peaks region in early March for so many years, it’s hard to find novel scenery. This was thus an interesting new challenge.

Once home, I continued with the exercise playing with the bleak, early spring scenery as our snow finally melted away.

This is a really good sensor. Many of these images you will note, were shot into the sun with prominent shadows. Better digital sensors have several qualities. One of them is dynamic range, which in part feeds into their true resolution.

Dynamic range describes the ability of the sensor to capture very bright scenes, and deep shadows, but still retain detail when the images are edited. Small pixel phone sensors have traditionally been terrible at this. This sensor handles it brilliantly, certainly as good as for instance my 2009 vintage Panasonic GH1, a much larger sensor interchangeable lens camera (also 12 megapixels).

Another attribute of a good sensor is tonality. This describes the subtle gradations shades of gray, and of color. Earlier technology recorded shades in discrete steps makes the image look more like a painting than a photograph, especially when viewed in detail. More sophisticated sensors have much more subtle gradations. I would say this Samsung sensor does surprisingly well in this regard.

I’ll offer one more thought. No one really talks about the lenses in these tiny camera modules, but in the case of this Samsung S20, there is little to criticize. There is some lens flare, and given the lack of any lens shading, but it is pretty well controlled. And if there other lens distortions that can be measured, they are well hidden in normal usage

At any rate, I think I’m done with this experiment. I’m going back to my more serious gear as the Spring season presents more photographic opportunities.

But it’s nice to know I’ll have the Samsung just in case.

As always, I’d Be honored if you’de share.

Header image: Wind and Snow( Samsung Galaxy S20 EW 5G)