Posted On: Thursday - April 8th 2021 6:32PM MST
In Topics: Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
First, I'd like to apologize for the sparse posting this week and the same in advance for the rest of the week. Well, I just wrote a comment on an iSteve thread that was to be a quick anecdotal post here, OK, still will, and there's a Kung Flu anecdotal one ready to go. There was Spring Break for the kids this week, and the next 3 or 4 days will be busy with work stuff.
I'll just put this video about Vitamin D in relation to the Kung Flu here for tonight. I asked Mr. Hail of the Hail to You blog for his opinion here, under his most recent post.
See what you think of this 28 minute talk by Dr. Ryan Cole. He's a doctor. ("Yeah, but so was Doctor Fauci too, at some point in his life, before he worked as a US Feral Gov't bureaucrat for going on 4 decades.")
Just anecdotally, back when the government schools were in complete “what to do? what to do?” mode in late March and April of last year, we were out at the park in the sunshine a lot – 2 hour recesses from my homeschooling were the norm. I imagine that was pretty good for us, in addition to the lowered stress levels due to not being completely fucking hysterical.
OTOH, at the time, the wife’s state of freak-out was stressful. She got better (said in the manner of the Witch-accuser played by John Cleese in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “She turned me into a newt!” “A newt?” [5 seconds of silence] “I got better …”)
The milk has been fortified with Vitamin D since before I was a kid. Do kids drink as much milk anymore? I don’t think they do. Of course, kids haven’t had any problem with the Kung Flu anyway. For adults, as Dieter Kief noted in a comment on Mr. Hail's blog, maybe supplements somehow don’t do the same for our bodies as getting it through our skin and the sunshine does.
Also, in that thread on "Hail to You", Mr. Hail made a good point about the Africans – in Africa vs. in Europe. They seem to be doing much better against this virus in their homelands than in the gloomy northlands of Scandinavia. (WTF they are doing there to begin with is another story – send them back! COVID-19! COVID-19! Save the Africans!)
Next time, we'll discuss "Kung Flu at the Zoo".
Comments:
Adam Smith
Friday - April 9th 2021 10:10AM MST
PS: Good afternoon everyone...
Vitamin D Bitchez!
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/china-skates/#comment-3811980
Hey Achmed, how sick of hearing about this Kung Flu are you now?
Mr. Alarmist, I agree with your comment.
Mr. Hail, “Elon Musk's claim on Mars re: the certainty of his ability to put a man (so to speak; perhaps a gender-nondiscriminatory humanoid entity) on Mars by 2030...”
In theory, the closest the planets could come together would be when Mars is at its closest point to the sun (perihelion) and Earth is at its farthest point (aphelion). In that situation, the planets would be 33.9 million miles (54.6 million kilometers) from each other. But that has never happened in recorded history. The closest known approach was 34.8 million miles (56 million km) in August 2003.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/L1ouzeo_h3g?color=white&autoplay=1
Elon Musk is an asshole for destroying Boca Chica.
☮
Vitamin D Bitchez!
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/china-skates/#comment-3811980
Hey Achmed, how sick of hearing about this Kung Flu are you now?
Mr. Alarmist, I agree with your comment.
Mr. Hail, “Elon Musk's claim on Mars re: the certainty of his ability to put a man (so to speak; perhaps a gender-nondiscriminatory humanoid entity) on Mars by 2030...”
In theory, the closest the planets could come together would be when Mars is at its closest point to the sun (perihelion) and Earth is at its farthest point (aphelion). In that situation, the planets would be 33.9 million miles (54.6 million kilometers) from each other. But that has never happened in recorded history. The closest known approach was 34.8 million miles (56 million km) in August 2003.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/L1ouzeo_h3g?color=white&autoplay=1
Elon Musk is an asshole for destroying Boca Chica.
☮
PeterIke
Friday - April 9th 2021 9:36AM MST
PS
If we had a sensible medical establishment, everyone hospitalized for Covid would be tested for vitamin D levels. The resulting information would be pretty valuable. Who survived? Who died? Do vit D levels correlate? Are we doing this? I doubt it. Any other "study" is basically nonsense.
The immune system is a complex beast. I supplement a lot with Vit D (and a million other things). I recently had mine tested and it was at the very high end of the range, so much so that I dialed back my supplements a bit. And see, I've never had the flu in my adult life. Not once. And I rarely get sick in any way. Maybe one cold a year, and I'm someone that pre-Rona spent a lot of time on crowded subways and in airplanes. And living in New York City I didn't get the Rona.
Or did I? Was I one of the many millions who inhaled the virus and my body just brushed it aside, leaving no trace, not even one discoverable by fraudulent PCR testing? You know, your body brushes off zillions of viruses and bacteria and fungi and all sorts of other badies ALL THE TIME. Why are some people better at it than others? I'd say vitamin D -- which is a steroid, not a vitamin -- is a piece of the puzzle, but the puzzle is hopelessly complex.
Consider, too, that thanks to Corona lockdowns, many people went outside much less than they would normally have last summer. A factor?
Vitamin D testing -- in fact, a complete blood panel -- should be required during any checkup, and the data anonymously collected for study and correlated with other patient data. E.g. Patient 12345 got pneumonia and had this blood panel: a, b, c.... If we had billions of these data points, think of what we could learn from it.
But since our medical establishment is, for the most part, unconcerned with prevention and concerned only with curing (ka-ching!), we don't do this kind of sensible information gathering.
Also, many people say the RDA on Vit D is way, way too low. So if people study Vit D supplementation at levels too low to do any good, of course the results will show it does no good.
As far as blacks go, yes Vit D may play a role in how Covid affects them. But blacks in America have a million other health issues, plus shitty diets and propensity to overindulge in pot and/or drank. Again, if we did full blood panels on everyone, we could start to correlate data and learn things.
But yeah, an overweight black guy with borderline diabetes who smokes joints on the daily and wolfs down some Purple Drank on the weekends might not fare the best with Covid. And lemme tell ya, it's not just young people doing the weed. Every -- and I mean EVERY -- middle-aged black guy I pass by lately stinks of pot.
Ok, that was kind of a ramble. Back to work!
If we had a sensible medical establishment, everyone hospitalized for Covid would be tested for vitamin D levels. The resulting information would be pretty valuable. Who survived? Who died? Do vit D levels correlate? Are we doing this? I doubt it. Any other "study" is basically nonsense.
The immune system is a complex beast. I supplement a lot with Vit D (and a million other things). I recently had mine tested and it was at the very high end of the range, so much so that I dialed back my supplements a bit. And see, I've never had the flu in my adult life. Not once. And I rarely get sick in any way. Maybe one cold a year, and I'm someone that pre-Rona spent a lot of time on crowded subways and in airplanes. And living in New York City I didn't get the Rona.
Or did I? Was I one of the many millions who inhaled the virus and my body just brushed it aside, leaving no trace, not even one discoverable by fraudulent PCR testing? You know, your body brushes off zillions of viruses and bacteria and fungi and all sorts of other badies ALL THE TIME. Why are some people better at it than others? I'd say vitamin D -- which is a steroid, not a vitamin -- is a piece of the puzzle, but the puzzle is hopelessly complex.
Consider, too, that thanks to Corona lockdowns, many people went outside much less than they would normally have last summer. A factor?
Vitamin D testing -- in fact, a complete blood panel -- should be required during any checkup, and the data anonymously collected for study and correlated with other patient data. E.g. Patient 12345 got pneumonia and had this blood panel: a, b, c.... If we had billions of these data points, think of what we could learn from it.
But since our medical establishment is, for the most part, unconcerned with prevention and concerned only with curing (ka-ching!), we don't do this kind of sensible information gathering.
Also, many people say the RDA on Vit D is way, way too low. So if people study Vit D supplementation at levels too low to do any good, of course the results will show it does no good.
As far as blacks go, yes Vit D may play a role in how Covid affects them. But blacks in America have a million other health issues, plus shitty diets and propensity to overindulge in pot and/or drank. Again, if we did full blood panels on everyone, we could start to correlate data and learn things.
But yeah, an overweight black guy with borderline diabetes who smokes joints on the daily and wolfs down some Purple Drank on the weekends might not fare the best with Covid. And lemme tell ya, it's not just young people doing the weed. Every -- and I mean EVERY -- middle-aged black guy I pass by lately stinks of pot.
Ok, that was kind of a ramble. Back to work!
Hail
Friday - April 9th 2021 9:17AM MST
PS
The one thing I found myself really disagreeing with in the Cole presentation was his confidently asserting that "there is no flu season, just a low vitamin-d season."
It's really more complicated, of course.
Despite our ability to put a man on the Moon (in principle, I know it hasn't been done lately and that Team Obama scrapped the space shuttle for the 2010s, ending any possibility, under the US flag at least, for a while -- it does seem the kind of stunt Trump would have tried in a second-term, but this is a long digression now and must end) and despite Elon Musk's claim on Mars re: the certainty of his ability to put a man (so to speak; perhaps a gender-nondiscriminatory humanoid entity) on Mars by 2030, and despite the bells-and-whistles of the mighty mighty INTERNET upon which I am writing this and the reader of present or distant-future is reading this (Dear distant-future people: What mechanisms did you evolve to resist and avoid crazy 'Virus-Panics'? We'd like to know), people may be surprised to know that we do NOT have a good idea of how the yearly respiratory-disease 'epidemics' work (i.e., the old "something's going around"), or what the 'seasonal' triggers exactly are.
Of course it cannot be Vitamin-D alone, otherwise why would flu ever spread in South Florida (or choose any such place)? All indications are that it's a combination of forces and varies by place, time, social conditions, and population-type, dependent on probably a set of ten or so factors. There is no one-button-solution.
The one thing I found myself really disagreeing with in the Cole presentation was his confidently asserting that "there is no flu season, just a low vitamin-d season."
It's really more complicated, of course.
Despite our ability to put a man on the Moon (in principle, I know it hasn't been done lately and that Team Obama scrapped the space shuttle for the 2010s, ending any possibility, under the US flag at least, for a while -- it does seem the kind of stunt Trump would have tried in a second-term, but this is a long digression now and must end) and despite Elon Musk's claim on Mars re: the certainty of his ability to put a man (so to speak; perhaps a gender-nondiscriminatory humanoid entity) on Mars by 2030, and despite the bells-and-whistles of the mighty mighty INTERNET upon which I am writing this and the reader of present or distant-future is reading this (Dear distant-future people: What mechanisms did you evolve to resist and avoid crazy 'Virus-Panics'? We'd like to know), people may be surprised to know that we do NOT have a good idea of how the yearly respiratory-disease 'epidemics' work (i.e., the old "something's going around"), or what the 'seasonal' triggers exactly are.
Of course it cannot be Vitamin-D alone, otherwise why would flu ever spread in South Florida (or choose any such place)? All indications are that it's a combination of forces and varies by place, time, social conditions, and population-type, dependent on probably a set of ten or so factors. There is no one-button-solution.
The Alarmist
Friday - April 9th 2021 7:44AM MST
PS
He wore his white jacket; that’s really important with a lot of people.
I had a recent blood draw and asked for a vitamin D test, and that I was willing to pay for it. The tech apologised that they have a process for that, but some thing they needed to print out the letter of agreement was not working, and so they couldn’t provide that for me this time around. It’s almost as if they don’t want the citizenry to be informed.
We don’t have healthcare systems in the Western world; we have sick care systems, in business for profit in many places and failing us in all.
He wore his white jacket; that’s really important with a lot of people.
I had a recent blood draw and asked for a vitamin D test, and that I was willing to pay for it. The tech apologised that they have a process for that, but some thing they needed to print out the letter of agreement was not working, and so they couldn’t provide that for me this time around. It’s almost as if they don’t want the citizenry to be informed.
We don’t have healthcare systems in the Western world; we have sick care systems, in business for profit in many places and failing us in all.
Moderator
Friday - April 9th 2021 5:57AM MST
PS: Mr. Kief, yes, you had a good reply on Mr. Hail's site. I apologize for not clicking on that link there until reading your comment here just now, well 1/2 an hour ago, as I spent some time perusing the Amin & Drenos paper. I have not looked at the Singh & Ernst study yet.
I don't think this is particularly "alternative medicine" though, I've got to say.
Anyway, as far as I know the methods of analysis in Amin/Drenos are perfectly fine. I could get into details, but I wouldn't know enough about that field to criticize anything beside this: This goes for lots of these papers based on observations only, not on any theory. By that, I mean that, just as with lots of medical studies, this is no more than doing statistics on cases/severity vs. measured amounts of compounds that are related to Vitamin D. There is no theory on the MECHANISM. That word is used not purely for mechanical processes, of course. In this case, it's chemical.
There's some chemical mechanism behind what Vitamin D does effect, and I'm sure things are much too complicated inside the human body to get at anything specific. So, all we have is meta-studies, just as with any of the New England Journal of Medicine studies that come into the big Media. For engineering research, there is a theory side to the research, and the matching of it to the observation/experimental work is what gives us confidence in the results
I bring up here the 30-year-long advice to avoid eggs for the cholesterol if you are prone to cardio-vascular blockage, etc. "Nah", we are told later, "it's the cholesterol from the saturated fat, not direct cholesterol - say from shrimp too - that matters." "OK, are you sure now?" I say. They obviously never really knew the mechanism.
I don't bring that up to say that all of this research is bunk, Mr. Kief. It's just that I am less and less likely to take it all as scientific "fact".
The study that you linked me to is for Europeans, BTW, and may not apply to the Africans either, but I take your point. I also don't mean to imply here that Dr. Cole really knows everything about Vitamin D. He is speculating too. His debunkers, as is simply the case with most molecular-biological processes - there is so much going on chemically in the human body, that the real mechanisms aren't being studied - are using statistical analysis of observation, which is better than anecdotes or speculation by far. However, Dr. Cole is not really up there telling Americans what they MUST do, just suggesting that maybe Vitamin D matters.
Thank you for your comment. I won't hold up this guy Ryan Cole as the expert, I promise you. I don't know enough.
I don't think this is particularly "alternative medicine" though, I've got to say.
Anyway, as far as I know the methods of analysis in Amin/Drenos are perfectly fine. I could get into details, but I wouldn't know enough about that field to criticize anything beside this: This goes for lots of these papers based on observations only, not on any theory. By that, I mean that, just as with lots of medical studies, this is no more than doing statistics on cases/severity vs. measured amounts of compounds that are related to Vitamin D. There is no theory on the MECHANISM. That word is used not purely for mechanical processes, of course. In this case, it's chemical.
There's some chemical mechanism behind what Vitamin D does effect, and I'm sure things are much too complicated inside the human body to get at anything specific. So, all we have is meta-studies, just as with any of the New England Journal of Medicine studies that come into the big Media. For engineering research, there is a theory side to the research, and the matching of it to the observation/experimental work is what gives us confidence in the results
I bring up here the 30-year-long advice to avoid eggs for the cholesterol if you are prone to cardio-vascular blockage, etc. "Nah", we are told later, "it's the cholesterol from the saturated fat, not direct cholesterol - say from shrimp too - that matters." "OK, are you sure now?" I say. They obviously never really knew the mechanism.
I don't bring that up to say that all of this research is bunk, Mr. Kief. It's just that I am less and less likely to take it all as scientific "fact".
The study that you linked me to is for Europeans, BTW, and may not apply to the Africans either, but I take your point. I also don't mean to imply here that Dr. Cole really knows everything about Vitamin D. He is speculating too. His debunkers, as is simply the case with most molecular-biological processes - there is so much going on chemically in the human body, that the real mechanisms aren't being studied - are using statistical analysis of observation, which is better than anecdotes or speculation by far. However, Dr. Cole is not really up there telling Americans what they MUST do, just suggesting that maybe Vitamin D matters.
Thank you for your comment. I won't hold up this guy Ryan Cole as the expert, I promise you. I don't know enough.
dieter kief
Friday - April 9th 2021 12:28AM MST
PS PS Mod - The vitamin-D supplementation discussion is old, (- I told you so already). Dr. Cole does not look into this stuff in "Trick or Treatment" by Edzart Enst and Simon Singh, a classic on the topic of "alternative" medicine. So you'd have to go all over that stuff once again, which is quite boring. - But such is the nature of bad scientists, they think, the process starts anew because of their presence. It doesn't though. Singh and Ernst have looked in hundreds of studies and found no evidence that vitamin D supplementation would work.
.
As Mr. Hail wrote already: Kung-Flu is not least a secular cult. People want to believe in things - and in holy men in white like Dr. Cole, who pretend to bring relief (simple solutions for hard questions (the hardest question of all, of course: Death).
The vitamin-D-way is - No Way Out, Mod. Dr. Cole is here more like Dr. Roberts, it seems: Good for your feels...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9L3iAUhc0
.
As Mr. Hail wrote already: Kung-Flu is not least a secular cult. People want to believe in things - and in holy men in white like Dr. Cole, who pretend to bring relief (simple solutions for hard questions (the hardest question of all, of course: Death).
The vitamin-D-way is - No Way Out, Mod. Dr. Cole is here more like Dr. Roberts, it seems: Good for your feels...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9L3iAUhc0
Dr. Razai said, the the resistance to the vaccination program of the government would be foremost among health care workers. Overall, he said that the resistance to getting vaccinated might hurt the vaccination effort in GB very badly.
Dr. Razai gave a reason for this behavior of the people of color in GB: It's the racism in Britain, he pointed out, and the fact, the people of color would be underrepresented not only in science but also as objects of science. Science itself would be color-blind too, so to speak.