[The following is a chapter from Dr. Julie Ponesse’s book, Our Last Innocent Moment.]

The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

My experience has been that one of the most heart-wrenching things in life is to watch someone make decisions that lead to their own destruction. It’s not just watching a person suffer that is hard but watching them make the very choices that create their suffering. And, maybe even worse, realizing that we do this ourselves.

Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, puts this phenomenon on the stage. It tells the story of Oedipus, a man prophesied from birth to murder his father and marry his mother despite his sincerest attempts to avoid doing either. Sophocles shows us that it is precisely because of these attempts that Oedipus is propelled towards his unfortunate end. At the end of the play, Oedipus realizes that his suffering is due to his own choices but, by that point, it is too late to change his course. So ashamed of what he has done, he blinds himself and flees into exile.

In the last essay, I considered whether our civilization is on the verge of collapse. That idea may have struck you as a bit extreme, but even just a cursory look at how we are faring, individually and collectively, suggests that the threads that hold us together are unraveling at a rate outpacing our ability to restitch them. In public and in private, online and in real life, our civil and moral deterioration is affecting how we view persons, how we raise and educate children, to what degree we are willing to sacrifice each other, and how inclined we are even to rewrite history.

In September, 2022, Trish Wood published a disturbingly diagnostic article called, “We Are Living the Fall of Rome (and it’s being forced on us as a virtue)” in which she describes us as “a doomed culture pretending not to see its own demise.” Wood cites “the normalization of abhorrent behaviour, the race-baiting and censorship, the cruelty and banishment of anyone who objects to the bizarre carnival unfolding in our streets” as evidence of our self-destructive behaviour. Our greed, our collectivism, our relativism, and our nihilism have created fault lines across every facet of life. And Covid seemed only to punctuate our destruction, leaving us with the deep wounds of “pandemic trauma.”

Wood isn’t wrong. Well beyond anything Covid did to us, or made salient, our society seems to be at a tipping point and it isn’t clear that we could shift back to where we were even if we tried. We are a broken people who seem to be breaking a little more every day. 

Here, I want to take the thesis of the last essay a step further and explore what might be causing our collapse. Is it a coincidence that we are suffering in so many different areas of life right now? Is it a little misstep on an otherwise progressive path? If we are on the verge of collapse, is it part of the arc of all great civilizations? Or, like Oedipus, do we suffer from some tragic flaw — a collective destructive character trait that we all share — that is responsible for bringing us to this place at this moment in history? 

What Ails Us?

All tragedies, classical and modern, follow a very specific pattern. There is some central character, the tragic hero, who is reasonably like us but who suffers terribly because of his tragic flaw, the internal imperfection that causes him to damage himself or others. Oedipus’ flaw is his excessive pride (or hubris) in thinking not only that he could escape his fate but that he alone can save Thebes from the plague placed upon it. It’s his pride that drives him to flee his adoptive parents and his pride that causes him to get angry enough to unknowingly kill the man (who turns out to be his father) at the crossroads who will not let him pass. His story moves us because, as Sigmund Freud wrote, “It might have been ours.”

One risk of searching for a (collective) tragic flaw to explain our destruction is that it presumes that we are protagonists living out a drama instead of people living in the real world. But our words aren’t crafted by playwrights, and our movements aren’t staged by directors. We envision our own futures, make our own choices, and act on those choices (or so it seems). And so a question is whether real people, and not just literary characters, can have tragic flaws. 

An interesting place to look for an answer is past moments of crisis in which we saw ourselves as, or made ourselves into, protagonists. WWII Britain is a good example, in part because it is relatively recent, and in part because it shares many of the experiences — of fear, social isolation, and an uncertain future — that we are experiencing now. When you read about how the British people rallied together, you can clearly see a sense of agency and moral purpose, and how some of the language used to describe this coming together straddled reality and fiction. A good example is a comment made by John Martin, Winston Churchill’s private secretary, to describe how the British people transformed themselves from victims to protagonists: “Brits came to see themselves as protagonists on a vaster scene and as champions of a high and invincible cause, for which the stars in their courses were fighting.”

It is also helpful to remember why the Ancient Greeks wrote tragedies in the first place. In the 5th century BC, the Athenians were reeling from decades of war and a deadly plague that killed one quarter of their population. Their lives were framed with uncertainty, loss, and grief, and the magnitude of the realization that life is fragile and largely beyond our control. The tragic playwrights — Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus — dramatized the experiences of war and death in order to make some sense of the chaos they caused, to create a semblance of order and reason. Tragic characters were not so much literary inventions as they were reflections of the actual experience of suffering that was all too common in the ancient world. And so, even though the fantastical battles between superhuman and the Olympian gods might seem a long leap from our more mundane lives, the lessons contained within the tragedies might still offer us something relevant and useful.

So I take it as a live and interesting question; are we suffering from a collective tragic flaw? And if so, what could it be? Taking a cue from the tragic playwrights — the Greeks, Shakespeare and even Arthur Miller — the candidates include hubris or excessive pride (Oedipus, Achilles, and The Crucible’s John Proctor), greed (Macbeth), jealousy (Othello), willful blindness (Gloucester in King Lear), and even extreme hesitancy (Hamlet).

In a way, I think we are suffering from all of these, from a complex web of tragic flaws. Our scientism predisposes us to unchecked ambition, our greed makes us excessively self-focused, and our blindness makes us numb to the suffering of others. But when I consider what might be the nexus at which all these flaws intersect, nothing seems to define us at this point in history more than our arrogance; arrogance in thinking we can write perfect essays and curate perfect homes; arrogance in thinking we can eradicate disease and malfunction, and even escape death; arrogance in thinking we can go to the limits of outer space and the depths of the sea without incident. 

But our arrogance is precise. It’s not just that we think we are better than others, or better than we have ever been. We think we can be superhuman. We think we can become perfect. 

The Perfect Storm

In an earlier essay, I argued that scientism has captured all sectors of society, powerfully shaping our response to Covid and, quite likely, to future crises. But why did we become doting followers of scientism in the first place?

As a starting point, let’s take a look at what was going on in academia in the years leading up to 2020. 

For a long time, the implicitly accepted value theories in medical ethics were hedonism (the pursuit of pleasure) and eudaimonism (the pursuit of flourishing via a life of virtue). But, at some point, these theories gradually began to be supplanted by a third contender: moral perfectionism.  

You are undoubtedly familiar with perfectionism as a character trait, the pursuit of excessively high personal standards of performance. But moral perfectionism adds the normative component that, to attain the good life, humans ought to become perfect in these ways. (Implied is the assumption that it is possible to do so.) 

Moral perfectionism is hardly new. In the 4th century BC, Aristotle’s moral perfectionism took the form of a virtue theory, claiming that humans have a telos (a purpose or goal), which is to attain a state of flourishing or well-being (eudaemonia). In simple terms, we need first to develop virtues like courage, justice, and generosity if we are to be capable of living well. Moral perfectionism took on a slightly different form in the 19th century with the utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill for whom a fulfilled, virtuous life is cultivated by developing what he called “higher pleasures” (mental pleasures versus pleasures of the body). 

But, by the time we got to the 21st century, moral perfectionism had morphed so completely it became unrecognizable. Originally meaning that we could actualize our potential by improving our natures, perfectionism now sets the unattainable goal of literally becoming free of defects. The perfectionism of today is the inhuman expectation that our lives are picture-perfect and reel-ready, that we must be superhuman in our physiology, our psychology, our immunity, and even our morality. We curate and style. We prescribe, vaccinate, shame, blame and surgically alter. And we expect as much, or more, from others.

One reason I think our culture was so keen to embrace mass Covid vaccination is that medical intervention, more generally, has taken on an odd sort of social currency. We rack up specialist visits, prescriptions, and surgeries like desirable partners on a dance card. This is a reflection, I think, of the influence of scientism and perfectionism in our lives; it means we are ‘on board’ with the idea of rooting out and eliminating every last personal flaw and using the latest technology to do so.

This is reflected, I think, in the lack of patience and grace we seem to have for those who choose to forgo whatever medical intervention is deemed able to ‘fix’ what ails them. I know of a woman who has suffered from depression for as long as anyone can remember. She refuses to take medication or even get a diagnosis. Most of her immediate family has diminishing grace for her simply because they believe she isn’t taking advantage of the proposed solutions. She won’t do the protocol, so she can “suffer the consequences.” 

The same intolerance exists for those who resist Covid vaccination. The common response from the devout pro-vaxxers is that we should refuse medical care to those who won’t take advantage of the solution offered to them. They won’t do the protocol, so they can “suffer the consequences.” (“Let them die,” as Canada’s largest national newspaper recommended.) 

It’s all so simple. Or is it? 

Perfectionism, when it comes to addressing our physical or mental infirmities, is the presumption that leaves no room for questions, nuance, individual differences, reflection, apology, or revision. And it didn’t emerge ex nihilo in 2020; it started to gain traction decades earlier, as it needed to if it was to mold our Covid response. 

Punctuated Perfectionism

There is evidence that this literal and extreme form of perfectionism started to settle into our personalities over 40 years ago. According to a 2019 study, unprecedented numbers of people began to experience self-oriented perfectionism (setting excessively high expectations for oneself), other-oriented perfectionism (doing the same for others), and socially-prescribed perfectionism (believing that one is held to extremely high standards by society) as early as the 1980s. In 2012, the UK Association for Physician Health found that perfectionism is a growing trait among doctors, in particular, who tend to be overly critical of their behaviour, leading to deleterious mental and physical effects.    

In his recent book, _The Perfection Trap,_ Thomas Curran writes that a perfect storm of globalization and wider environmental factors, including the increased presence of social media in our lives, created favourable conditions for socially-prescribed perfectionism. He writes, 

I found that our world has become increasingly globalised over the last 25 years, with the opening up of borders to trade and employment, and much higher levels of travel,… In the past we were judged more on a local scale, but with the opening of economies what we are seeing is that people are being exposed to these additional global ideals of perfection.

While we might have expected globalization to increase our awareness of others, and therefore our tolerance for diversity, it also provides greater opportunities for comparison. Whether you are making dinner or building a stock portfolio, globalism widened the lens of comparison at a dizzying rate, creating endless opportunities to be made aware of our flaws.

The highly edited and curated aspect of social media exacerbates this effect. Images of strangers at carefully selected moments of their lives distorts our perceptions of what real life is and what it can be. The ability to take 50 photos of a single moment and then delete all but the best creates a false impression of what life is really like. And the very idea of curation — the process of editing our lives as though they are to be part of a museum exhibit — angles us towards perfectionism.

Political Perfectionism

Another unfortunate effect of perfectionism is that it lends itself to a certain kind of political organization in which the state has substantial centralized control over people’s lives: statism. 

The Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant presciently argued that a perfectionist society requires government to regulate human coexistence. This, I suspect, is precisely why we saw so little resistance to the increasingly rigid Covid regulations which framed every part of our lives. During Covid, there was no thought that humans could be left to conscientiously manage their own interactions, or even that individual physicians could responsibly guide them. Free choice is irreducibly individualistic, and therefore messy. It allows that different people with different values will make different, and therefore non-perfecting, choices. And so free choice was among the first things to be sacrificed as perfectionism gained ground in early 2020.

Perfectionism is precisely the value theory one would expect to predominate in a culture captured by scientism, and it is the one we find framing every facet of our lives today. Willingly and with pride, we laid informed consent on the altar of perfectionism not to protect ourselves, but to perfect ourselves. Individual freedom became the naive idea that we thought 21st century civilization had matured beyond.

If our tragic flaw is perfectionism, it would explain a lot. It would explain our comfort with conformity and compliance, since perfectionism requires us to eliminate the anomalies that detract from the goal of self-perfection. It would explain our obsession with Artificial Intelligence, pharmaceutical enhancement, cryogenics, and MAID, and with the general desire to transcend our limitations. It would explain why we thought Zero-Covid — the perfect eradication of the virus — was possible. It would explain our interest in curation and our intolerance of the weak, messy parts of life. And it would explain why we favour closure and judgment and the desire to cut people out of our lives with surgical precision rather than working through the tricky parts of a relationship. For better or worse (far worse, I think), our myopic obsession with perfectionism became the monotheism of the 21st century.

Perfectionism and Pandemic Psychology

So, how did the rise of perfectionism in society, generally, culminate in our hyper-perfectionist tendencies during COVID? 

A recent study explored the effect of perfectionism on our psychological states during Covid. It showed that perfectionism increased not only the likelihood of experiencing Covid-related stress but also the tendency to conceal health problems in order to be seen by others as perfect. For perfectionists, the possibility of getting sick can be interpreted as an obstacle to achieving flawlessness in various domains of life such as physical appearance, work, or parenting. For the “self-critical perfectionist” and the “narcissist,” in particular, personal value is determined largely by external validation, and so virtue-signaling became unsurprisingly prominent during Covid. Covid pushed so unrelentingly on our perfectionist buttons that we tragically drove ourselves into a state of social and personal destruction. 

And herein lies the problem. Perfectionism is not just vain or misguided ambition. It reflects a false perception of who we are, a failure to properly “know thyself.” It shows that we give ourselves — our strengths and our weaknesses — as little attention as we give others. In setting our sights on perfection, we forget that we aren’t capable of it and, more importantly, that the beauty in life doesn’t consist of it.  

This is one of the greatest lessons the Greek tragedies teach us: that we must accept, and ultimately embrace, the basic uncertainties and imperfections of life. The contemporary philosopher Martha Nussbaum draws on lessons from the Greek play Hecuba to make this point:

The condition of being good is that it should always be possible for you to be morally destroyed by something you couldn’t prevent. To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the human condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from its fragility.

For Nussbaum, and no doubt for Hecuba herself, the paradox of life is that, while our imperfections are what expose us to suffering, the worst tragedy of all is to try to safeguard ourselves to the point that we can no longer live as the beings we are. 

So much of our perfectionism is tied up with hyper-confidence in technology and its ability to suppress the contingencies of life that cause us pain and suffering. Two thousand years ago we invented ploughs, bridles, and hammers to gain some control over the untamed wilderness around us; today, we invent passwords, security systems, and vaccines. But we forget that using technology to improve our lives requires more than mere technical accomplishment; it requires the practical wisdom needed to keep it working for us rather than us becoming enslaved to it.

The very possibility of relationships exposes us to risk. It requires that we trust and accept promises from other people, and even just that they continue living in a state of good health. The other day, I ran into a woman from our local grocery store with whom I have come to be friendly. I remarked on how I hadn’t seen her in a while. She said her sister passed away unexpectedly, 2 months after a cancer diagnosis. She also said that, in the midst of mourning this loss, she was also trying to figure out who she was without a sister, without her best friend, navigating a chaotic world as a new and lonely person.

The response to these losses is often to recoil to protect ourselves. When people die, break promises, or in other ways become unreliable, it’s natural to want to retreat into the thought “I’ll just live on my own, for myself.” You see this everywhere today: people severing relationships that become a bit too burdensome, diving into a world of screens in which the characters are more reliable, even if ultimately less fulfilling.

On top of turning away from relationships, we use certainty as an extra layer of protection from risk and uncertainty. The novelist Iris Murdoch hypothesizes that we deal with the uncomfortable uncertainty of life by feigning surety and confidence. Unwilling to fully live into what we are — anxious and uncertain creatures, tender and terrified and fragile throughout so much of life — we train ourselves into being consumed in false certitudes. 

Isn’t this what we are doing today? We feign certainty about the origins of Covid, the true causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the intentions of global political actors. But, when we decide to live this way — perfectly certain and full of pride — we aren’t just losing the value that relationships bring to life; we’re making a choice to live less humanly since these are the things that make life meaningful.

What it is to have a tragic flaw is not just to make poor life choices. Oedipus didn’t just choose poorly; instead, every particular thing he decided to do was ironically and essentially linked to his downfall. It was the self-righteous thought that he was single-handedly ridding Thebes of the source of its plague that propelled him towards his own destruction. Seeing himself as its saviour made him its destroyer. 

In a similar way, I believe our obsession with perfectionism is ironically and essentially tied to the fateful choices we made with respect to Covid-19 and in so many other areas of our lives. We are not, it seems, so unlike the tragic characters of literature. By using technology unguided by wisdom to try to control the world around us, we are becoming its slaves. By cancelling others, we are making it impossible to live well, ourselves. And it is our pretence of unity — “We’re all in this together,” “Do your part” — that is dividing us more than ever. Our tragic flaw, it seems, is ironically and powerfully creating our own destruction. 

Catharsis

How do we cure ourselves of this tragic flaw? 

In literature, tragic flaws get worked out by a specific process called catharsis, a process of cleansing or purification in which the tragic emotions — pity and fear — are aroused and then eliminated from the reader’s (or viewer’s) psyche. Catharsis gets worked out in the theatre much like therapy does in real life; by giving the audience an opportunity to vicariously work through intense emotions and their tragic consequences in the lives of literary characters, emerging somehow rebalanced.

It is not by coincidence that the experience of catharsis is visceral in the way that a good cry takes it out of you, physically. And the origins of the term certainly reflect its connection with physical purgation.

Aristotle typically used catharsis in a medical sense, referring to the evacuation of katamenia — menstrual fluid — from the body. The Greek word “Kathairein” appears even earlier than this, in the works of Homer who used the Semitic word “Qatar” (for “fumigate”) to refer to purification rituals. And, of course, the Greeks had the idea of miasma, or “blood guilt,” which could only be cured by spiritually purifying acts. (The classical example is Orestes whose soul is purified when Apollo douses him with the blood of a suckling pig.) In the Christian tradition, the ritual of drinking Christ’s symbolic blood during the communion sacrament helps us to remember his sacrificial death which cleansed us of unrighteousness. The general idea is that our emotions can be whipped up and then released just as we might hydrate, fast, and sweat to purge ourselves of physical toxins.

Catharsis is an integral part of the healing process. Its purpose is to create an awakening, a process of seeing what you have done, who you are, and how your choices impact yourself and others. That awakening is often painful, like the first moments of opening your eyes in the morning or like the prisoners who are blinded by the light as they emerge from Plato’s metaphorical cave. 

It is not a coincidence, I think, that so many people describe their falling away from the Covid narrative as a kind of “waking up.” It’s a matter of seeing things in a new light, seeing ducks where you once only saw rabbits. There is a discomfort to it. But there is also eventual relief in that discomfort as the truth starts to come into view.

If we have a tragic flaw, and if it is perfectionism, then what sort of catharsis might cure us of it? What underlying emotions are involved and how can we whip them up so we can purge ourselves of them?

A good place to start is to think about how collectives — groups of people — tend to respond to emergency or trauma events. September 11 comes easily to mind. Though it was over 20 years ago now, I remember the days following 9/11 with crystal clarity. I especially remember the way it arrested and solidified us, socially. I was standing in line at a coffee shop on my way to class when I first heard the news. Well before the era of smartphones, everyone stopped to gather in the corner of the shop around a television set that was covering the event. You could hear people breathing, it was so still and quiet. People were looking for some explanation in each other’s eyes. Some held each other, most cried. 

I was a graduate student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario at the time and I remember everyone talking about it when I got to campus. Classes were cancelled, “Closed” signs appeared in store windows. It became the topic of seminars for weeks to come. News coverage overtook regularly scheduled programming for days. I was riveted but exhausted. The media images — of soot-covered firefighters, personal items protruding from the rubble, waves of dust billowing through the streets, stories of children whose parents would never come home and, of course, the searing image of Father Mychal Judge’s body being carried out of the rubble. 

These images, the ongoing media coverage, the endless conversations and tears and hugs all exhausted us. We were talked out, hugged out, and cried out. In the days, weeks and even months afterwards, I remember feeling physically weak from it all. Maybe we did more than we needed to do but all the sharing was our cathartic release. It was painful but it somehow cleansed us and drew us together.

We engaged in what psychologists call “social sharing” — the tendency to recount and share emotional experiences with others — and it was powerfully cathartic. Psychologist Bernard Rimé found that 80-95% of emotional episodes are shared and that we typically socially share negative emotions after a tragic event in order to understand, to vent, to bond, to seek meaning, or to combat feelings of loneliness. 

Sociologist Émile Durkheim explains that it is through sharing that we achieve a reciprocal stimulation of emotions which leads to the strengthening of beliefs, a renewal of trust, strength, and self-confidence, and even increased social integration. It’s in sharing that we build a community of those experiencing the same trauma. Research shows that sharing not just the facts of our experiences, but our feelings about them, improves recovery after traumatic events. A 1986 study assigned participants to one of four groups, including a “trauma-combo group,” in which participants wrote about not just the facts of their trauma but the emotions surrounding them. Those in the trauma-combo group showed the most emotional healing but also the greatest objective health improvements, including reduction in illness-related doctor’s visits. 

Now that we’ve gained some distance from the intensity of the Covid crisis, I am realizing just how radically different our collective response was compared with what I remember about 9/11. 

As a traumatic event, shouldn’t we have expected a similar pattern of sharing? Where was the deluge of conversations, the emotional meltdowns, the personal stories? Where were all the public hugs and tears? 

None of this happened during Covid. We shared the facts but not the experiences. We focused on the statistics, not the stories. There was no Covid “trauma-combo group,” no sharing of what it felt like to be terrified of the virus or the government response to it, no coming together over the grief of loved ones dying alone, no sorrow over what it was like to be hated by your fellow citizens or cast out of meaningful social interactions. 

In comparison to 9/11, our natural trauma response to Covid was stunted by our deep culture of silence, censorship, and cancellation. The sharing happened in small, isolated groups, and the media coverage was fringe and outlying. But the acknowledged, shared experiences of people living through a global, traumatic event were absent… or silenced.

The fact that we didn’t do the emotional work needed for trauma recovery in the natural course of things means we are still saddled with pent-up, tragic emotions. And they aren’t likely to dissolve by the mere passage of time. The work will still need to be done, whether it is by us now, or by our children or grandchildren at some point in the future. 

So, what do we need to do now? We need families and friends to talk about how the last three years changed them. We need sisters to share their pain and uncertainties. We need Substacks and op-eds and feature articles on the totality of the costs — physical, emotional, economic, and existential — of the pandemic and the pandemic response. We need testimonies and interviews and books of poetry and history to flood the Amazon and New York Times bestseller lists. We need all of this to help us make sense of what happened to us. Stories are a balm to our wounds. We need them for our recovery as much as to create an accurate historical record. And until we have them, our emotions will fester a little more each day, with us floating in a kind of Covid purgatory.

Last Thoughts

It’s hard to imagine that we are a civilization on the verge of collapse and perhaps even harder still to imagine that we could be the cause of our own destruction. But it’s useful to remember that civilizations are not as invincible as we might think. According to British scholar Sir John Bagot Glubb, the average lifespan of civilizations is a mere 336 years. By this measure, we have done quite well, our civilization — with roots in Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire — having lasted much longer than most. It’s a sobering fact that every civilization but our own has collapsed. And, for better or for worse, it was the destruction of every prior civilization that allowed for the creation of our own. 

But what perplexes me so much about our potential collapse is that we seem to have all the resources to resist it. We have a robust written historical record to show us how perverted leaders, greed, civil war, and the loss of culture and communication destroy us. We are more literate (in a sense) and more technologically advanced than ever, which should have insulated us from some of the common causes of destruction: disease, economic collapse, and global war. You would think that the lessons of history, alone, would have helped us to swerve to avoid our destruction. And yet here we are.

All these resources, yes, but we have little character, little practical wisdom with which to manage them. In the end, we are here because of a tragic flaw that makes us believe in the possibility of living perfectly rather than living well, all the while making us blind to the paradox at the heart of the idea.

Is there an author to our Covid experience, and to our more general destruction? I don’t know and I don’t think it ultimately matters. 

What matters is how we, as individuals, respond. What matters is how much attention we give ourselves and others, whether we ask ourselves the hard questions and root out the character flaws lurking in the darkest corners of our souls. What matters is not that we are characters but that we have characters, that we are able to accept responsibility for lives and the choices we make.

It’s interesting to me that, even amidst the ‘We-don’t-need-history’ arrogance of the 21st century, the tragic stories of Shakespeare and of Ancient Greece have managed to survive. That, in itself, should give us reason to pause and pay attention. I wonder, why have their themes stood the test of time? Why do they resonate so profoundly? And, most importantly, what are we attempting to teach ourselves through the telling and retelling? 

Tragedies are not just stories that help us to make sense of the chaos of the world around us; they are also warnings for the future generations. They are scratchings on the walls of the caves and letters from the past to teach us how to avoid future self-destruction.  

Unfortunately, history shows us that we aren’t very good at heeding these warnings. It’s as though our tragic flaw is standing in the way of seeing the truth about ourselves. We are still lurking in the shadow of Oedipus. And, like Oedipus, it’s the things we do to try to avoid our destruction that fate us to play it out. Perhaps we think we are special, or somehow immune. Perhaps we believe we have evolved past the tragic flaws of our ancestors; but we don’t see that we are just as weak and willfully blind. Like Oedipus, we are refusing to see and will one day no longer be able to look at ourselves.

I hope I haven’t given the impression that working our tragic flaw out of ourselves will be easy or that it will make all of our troubles dissolve in a moment. There’s a reason why so many choose willful blindness; it’s not sticky. You can go through your day, even a whole life, without raising eyebrows or ringing any socially alarming bells. But confronting our mistakes and working through them is the only possible way forward.

Our lives are framed largely by the stories we tell ourselves. And perfectionism is the story we are currently telling. But it’s a dangerous and destructive story because it creates “blind spots” that make us unable to see the harm we do. If it’s destroying us, then shouldn’t we try to write a different story?

A story in which our lives are messy, the future uncertain, and our lives finite. 

A story in which we are imperfect beings who listen to each others’ stories and offer grace for each other’s imperfections. 

A story we need to learn to write with new characters we need to learn to be. 

A story in which the things that destroy us in one moment can teach and heal us in the next. 

In every tragedy, just before climax, there is an eerie calm. The calm of Fall 2023 is deafening. People aren’t speaking. Stories aren’t being shared. Self-adulation and revisionism abound. 

I can’t help but wonder, are we experiencing the “falling action” after the climax of our story, or is it still to come? How would we know? Does the tragic hero ever know? The falling action in a play usually includes the character’s reaction to the climax, how he copes with the obstacles that brought him to that point, and how he plans to carry on. 

How do we plan to carry on? Will we look our mistakes in the face or will we continue to feed the beast that is our obsession with perfectionism? Will we start telling our stories? Will we listen to the stories of others? And, maybe most importantly, will future generations heed our warnings?

Time will tell us. Or, as the tragic playwright Euripides advised, “Time will explain it all.”

By Patrick Lawrence / Original to ScheerPost

Diego Ramos, ScheerPost’s managing editor, forwarded me a video clip last week he thought I ought to see. Sending it under the subject line, “Disturbing trend in Israel,” my colleague must have reckoned I have not been sufficiently shocked by the events in Israel and Gaza since Hamas mounted an assault into southern Israel on October 7 and the Israeli Defense Forces began a purposely disproportionate response to the incursion—purposely disproportionate as a matter of official policy since David Ben–Gurion put it in place during his premiership in the 1950s. 

Diego did his disturbing work. The video he forwarded outdoes it all so far by provoking a disgust as profound as any I have ever felt. It features a number of scenes wherein Israelis record themselves sadistically ridiculing Palestinians in the most cravenly cruel manner. They imitate Palestinian children dying or starving. They apply racially offensive makeup. They laugh and dance while switching lights on and off and while ostentatiously drinking water from taps—this last to mock Gazans as Israel deprives them of power, potable water, food and much else.

And I am describing the children in these videos, ranging in age from, maybe, six or seven to somewhere in their teens or early twenties. The mothers stand behind them, smiling with approval and delight. Here is the video as posted by Al Jazeera English last Thursday. I have since seen several others like it.

By common agreement among many lawyers, scholars of international law, special rapporteurs, and the like—including Israelis in these fields—what we witness daily now is by all acceptable definitions a genocide. Whether or not Israel is committing war crimes by the hour is not even worth debating. But I am taken up now by the spectacle of human beings who have allowed themselves to be destroyed in the name of an ideology that proves every bit as racist as it was when, in 1975, the U.N. General Assembly declared Zionism to be so. Resolution 3379 was revoked in 1991; it should not have been.

I am reminded of what I learned years ago when studying the Japanese Imperial Army’s conduct in China and Korea before and during World War II and the long record of the Kempeitai, commonly known as Imperial Japan’s Thought Police. Victimizers, I came to conclude with conviction, are victims, too. This holds for the people in the videos I have recently viewed and for every Israeli wearing an IDF uniform. They have been stripped of all ordinary decency by the radical ideologues of “the Jewish state.” They can laugh or sneer or pull all the triggers they like: Their lives, too, have been destroyed. Look at the videos: The evidence of this is in every frame.  

“Nothing human disgusts me” is a line I remember well from The Night of the Iguana, the 1961 play by the superbly human Tennessee Williams. I hold to this thought (even while reading the foreign pages of The New York Times). What has happened to the people in the videos must disgust us. But what they suffer as victims could happen to all but the strongest among us. They are appalling specimens of humanity, but they are human. As we find our way to some morally, intellectually defensible high ground during the atrocities we witness daily, we need to bear this in mind.

And this, too: Those videos were not shot in isolation. They reflect a culture of racism, xenophobia, hatred, and—we see this now—sadism that has taken pride in itself for many years. These sentiments are instruments of the state, carefully cultivated. You may remember the videos shot at the time of the al–Aqsa crisis two years ago. Young Israelis in sparkling school uniforms or stylish clothes leapt up and down in a sort of frenzy in the streets of Jerusalem while shouting, “Death to all Arabs.” I read those images looking back and forward: They were the flowers of the Israeli state’s century of official indoctrination and a prelude to the videos coming out now.

Arnold Toynbee, the great if no longer fashionable historian, argued in his 12–volume “A Study of History” that civilizations rise when creative elites respond to new circumstances with imagination and courage, while they decline, in turn, not in consequence of external factors but due to spiritual collapses within. This is the Israel of Bibi Netanyahu, the Israel whose plan, we know by way of an official document leaked over the weekend, is to ethnic-cleanse Gaza and incorporate it into the Jewish state. Its leaders are brutes and—as the videos I reference show—they have destroyed Israel’s human spirit. 

I saw an interview Sunday with a Defense Department contractor who has visited Israel dozens of times over many years on DoD work. He recounted the steady decline in any belief in a peaceful settlement of the Israel–Palestine crisis that he has detected since 2007. For most Israelis, he observed, it is down to violence now. A headline in Monday’s editions of The Times, recording these changing desires and expectations: “I Don’t Have That Empathy. It’s Not Me Anymore.” This is the voice of a nation that has demolished itself in its attempts to destroy others. 

A couple of weeks ago in this space I published a commentary asserting that the two-state solution to the Israel–Palestine question is dead, and a single, secular state is the only way forward. I had some mail afterward to the effect that a one-state solution is too far from reality to think about. I will reply here that these readers have it upside-down. A one-state solution is now the only realistic idea worth considering. Until Israelis accept that they must live in a single nation wherein Palestinians dwell as equal citizens, there is no more future for them than there is for Palestinians. They, Israelis, will be condemned to live in a walled-off garrison state that will come to look ever more like a commodious version of the “open-air prison” we speak of when we speak of Gaza. 

“We are the people of the light, they are the people of darkness,” Netanyahu said in a much-remarked speech to the nation last Wednesday, “and light shall triumph over darkness.” This is the utterance of a destroyer—of people, of hope—a man who cannot find his way out of the Old Testament and nonsensically demands we live in it with him, a man who simply should not be leading anything in the 21st century. 

And we, we Americans, are urged daily to support the depravity into which this man leads Israel ever more deeply. Netanyahu’s depravity, Israel’s, must be ours, too. We are urged now to openly endorse war crimes and a genocide. And so we, too, are in consequence letting an apartheid state’s intentionally terrorizing campaign against Palestinians accelerate our none-too-sturdy nation into the kind of internal collapse Toynbee described as the dynamic of decline.

Across the country you find confrontations between those who argue in behalf of their consciences and those who censure, name-call, deplatform, or otherwise attempt to ruin them for not supporting open-and-shut murder. At the University of Pennsylvania, wealthy donors threaten to withhold their support if the administration does not come out in favor of this savagery. The Writers Guild of America West is under attack for similarly refraining. Artforum, the monthly chronicler of the gallery scene, fired its editor for signing an open letter calling for a ceasefire, whereupon collectors now threaten to “deaccession” the works of artists who also signed. Let us add to this a 71–year old man’s murder of a 6–year-old Palestinian boy near Chicago two weeks ago, an incident that left his mother in critical condition. 

These implicit defenses of systematic savagery must be dressed up, of course. And so America plunges into the disgracefully cynical argument that to oppose the Israeli operation in Gaza is anti–Semitic. The Chinese put their hands up to contribute to a ceasefire and talks toward an enduring settlement of one or another kind, but China is anti–Semitic because it has not condemned the Hamas assault. 

A museum bureaucrat named Sarah Lehat Blumenstein is now going after artists who signed the letter that got Artforum’s editor fired. She threatens them with “a deaccession plan to dimmish the artists’ status.” Explaining herself in an interview with The Times, she said her efforts reflect “a fear that rising anti–Semitism was endangering her right to exist.”

The ADL may wish to come after me for this one, such have things come to, but this statement proposes a patently ridiculous equivalence, albeit one emblematic of the post–October 7 climate. If you oppose the Israelis’ genocide operation and merely call for a ceasefire, some museum functionary is frightened that her life is under threat? I view this as more than a vulgar misuse of history and a contemptuous use of the victim card. This reflects a nation that no longer knows how to make sense of itself. 

I loved, in this connection, a piece The Times ran in last Saturday’s editions to dress up, as a matter of personal affection, what has to be the Biden regime’s worst policy failure to date. Joe Biden just loves Israel, Peter Baker, The Times’s White House correspondent, wants us to know, and we should understand this—and along the way accept his “unwavering support.” “Some confidants,” Baker then writes, “said that Mr. Biden’s Irish heritage makes him relate to the plight of historically marginalized people and that his own family tragedy connects him to the grief of those who have lost so much.”

Readers, take as much time as you wish lingering over this, among the most preposterous sentences written to explain U.S. policy since violence erupted October 7. 

We propose to ban the exercise of conscience, condemnations of the out-of-control violence of an openly racist nation. No, you cannot think that. No, you cannot say that. You must think and say this. We tell ourselves stories about what good, well-intended fellows are those who support atrocities. U.S. foreign policy has not for many decades had much to do with the ideals of Western civilization as we were taught to think of them. Now we whose taxes pay for policy are urged to come right out with it: Yes, we approve of war crimes, violence against noncombatants, ethnic cleansing. What is Israel costing us? Ourselves and our self-respect, our psychological coherence, our regard of history, our culture, our humanity. 

Israel, the U.S. and the rest of the West cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the grave, grave error of al–Nakba in 1948, when began the forcible removal of Palestinians from their land. See the Toynbee reference above: Nobody in power has the creativity, imagination, or confidence to confront the present as the consequence of this error and begin acting to correct it. And so Israel will continue to pull us in the wrong direction—or further in the wrong direction, I ought to say. I hope I am not around if ever Americans start in with the sadistic videos.

TO MY READERS. Independent publications and those who write for them reach a moment that is difficult and full of promise all at once. On one hand, we assume ever greater responsibilities in the face of mainstream media’s mounting derelictions. I take up this very topic in the commentary you have just read. On the other, we have found no sustaining revenue model and so must turn directly to our readers for support. I am committed to independent journalism for the duration: I see no other future for American media. But the path grows steeper, and as it does I need your help. This grows urgent now. If you are already a supporter, big thanks. If you aren’t, please, to sustain my continued contributions to ScheerPost and in recognition of the commitment to independent journalism I share with this superb publication, join in by subscribing to The Floutist, or via my Patreon account.

Patrick Lawrence

Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a media critic, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His web site is Patrick Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored without explanation.

All of the worst atrocities in human history have been perpetrated by people convinced they were in the right. People act according to the mores of their era and group. There is nothing more dangerous that the inability to see that it is reasonable for others to have a different view or interest.

The Guardian has been publishing calls for NATO to declare war on Russia. Twitter is awash with fanatic “liberals” arguing there can be no negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, and the war must only end with Ukraine recovering all territory including Crimea.

The most crazed sometimes go further and suggest the war may only end with regime change in Russia.

It does not require any special degree of intelligence to see the dangers of insisting on the unconditional surrender, and the personal incarceration or death, of those with their finger on the big red button, in a war against a nuclear power.

The 20th century saw two terrible “world wars”. The first was the result of Imperial rivalries and dynastic power, and it is difficult to discern any morality in it at all (though the propaganda fabrications about Germans bayonetting Belgian babies are a template that has been, with slight variations, repeated by western media in every war right up until today).

The Second World War, however, was as close to a justified war as can ever be found. Fascism and Nazism were truly evil doctrines, while the Western forces that opposed them were on the brink of a golden but short-lived era of social democracy and meaningful working class empowerment.

The problem is that this has become the template for thinking about war in the West – that we are always the “goodies” and the opponents are truly evil, and that total war must be fought leading to unconditional surrender, with even the most horrendous atrocities (Dresden, Hiroshima) justified within the overarching moral imperative.

We have seen straightforward imperial wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, each of which the media has tried to manipulate to fit that thought pattern. It also drives the continual propaganda that the war in Ukraine comes from an invasion by an evil Russian regime and was “illegal and unprovoked”.

Now as you know, I hold that Russian incursion or invasion was illegal, both in 2014 and 2022. But unprovoked it most certainly was not.

It is interesting to return to the World War II precedent here, because it has never been understood to detract from acceptance of the evil of Nazism, to attempt to understand how it happened.

Every schoolchild of my age was taught the “Causes of World War II”, and the first cause was always the extremely punitive Treaty of Versailles.

The insistence on unconditional surrender in World War I, the entirely unfounded claim the whole conflict of World War I was Germany’s fault, the annexations, cruel financial reparations and blow to national pride of military suppression, were all universally acknowledged by historians as mistakes that were of great help to Hitler.

Interestingly, today’s history school curricula in the UK spend much more time on World War II than we used to, and are much less nuanced. The causes of the war feature much less if at all, and heroic Britnat tales of a brave struggling people (which are not of course untrue) feature much more.

With Ukraine, we are not allowed to acknowledge any of the factors that provoked Russia. Not NATO expansion and forward positioning of missiles, not glorification of Nazism, not suppression of Russian language and political parties, not shelling of Russian civilian areas.

In fact it is apparently traitorous to mention any of these things: a crime against the overarching goal of total victory.

This establishment and media narrative is countered on social media by others who take an opposite and equally uncompromising view. They believe Russia must fight to a total victory in Ukraine, depose Zelensky, and humiliate and weaken NATO, thus dealing a blow to US Imperialism.

While a much smaller group, the pro-Russian extremists can be every bit as bloodthirsty as the NATO hawks.

The problem is that all these people on both sides, fuelled by the righteousness of their own belief, are blind to the immense human suffering of the war. They don’t seem to care that many times the amount of suffering so far would be required in order for either side to achieve total victory.

Whereas in the real world both sides are bogged down in a barely moving battle of attrition. The idea of “total victory” is impractical nonsense.

As for those actually making the decisions, for Western politicians a continuing war is a win-win. It drains Russia, their designated enemy. More importantly, it provides the massive opportunities for concentrated political power and super-profits from the public purse that only war can bring.

So far the UK has provided £4.1 billion of weaponry to Ukraine, without a mainstream political dissenting voice. If total victory is the aim, that is just an appetiser.

Yet we have the pretend opposition Labour Party stating that £1.2 billion a year cannot possibly be found to lift the two-child benefit cap and relieve child poverty.

That is one reason wars are so good for the wealthy who control us. Weapons expenditure is beyond control or criticism. To date £5 billion has been spent on the Ajax light armoured vehicle project without a single vehicle ready to enter service having been produced.

There is no telling how much Trident is eventually going to cost, though at least 125 billion. The war in Ukraine provides yet more evidence that our nuclear deterrent does not actually deter anything.

Though I suppose the Ukraine war does radically improve the chances that at least we might get our money’s worth from Trident by blowing the whole world to pieces.

I can see no logical refutation to my constantly repeated argument that the war in Ukraine has shown that Russia cannot speedily defeat a much smaller, weaker and extremely corrupt neighbouring state, so the incredibly high expenditure on “defence” by NATO is not really needed.

The idea that Russia, which is taking a long while to defeat Ukraine, could be a serious threat to the entire NATO alliance is plainly utter nonsense.

But Russia can of course eventually defeat it’s much weaker and smaller neighbour. Ultimately Ukraine cannot win this war, and somehow the West has to come to terms with that. Ukraine is quite simply going to run out of people able and willing to fight.

Ukraine’s use of US cluster weapons was perhaps the first major dent in the blue and yellow public opinion so carefully manufactured in the West. As the horrible war continues on with no real Ukrainian victories to cheer, the “who started it” question will fade in the public mind.

I still think it was unwise of Putin to start this war, as well as illegal. If his goals are limited, then this is a good time to move to cash in his gains.

You may be surprised to know that I have a certain degree of admiration for Bismarck. Apart from a genuine claim to have invented the foundations of a welfare state, Bismarck’s use of war was brilliant.

Bismarck stuck to defined and limited objectives, and did not allow spectacular military success to lead him to expand those objectives.

The purpose of his two wars against Austria and France was to unify Germany, and he succeeded in very quick wars, immediately ended. Humiliating or punishing France or Austria played no significant part in his thinking. Bismarck had limited goals, achieved them and stopped the fighting immediately.

This horrible war will end with Russia retaining Crimea. There is no point in arguing about it. Whether the Donbass remains theoretically part of Ukraine remains to be seen, but de facto Russian autonomy there will be established. I suspect that more important to Putin than the Donbass would be territory further south which secures the approaches to Crimea.

There has to be a territorial settlement. That is what diplomacy is for. The total war options are in themselves terrible and bring massive nuclear risk.

The idea of either side fighting through to total victory is, quite simply, madness. Sanity must be imposed on those who seek to profit from continuing war, or seek to engulf the world in the flames of ideology and righteousness.

Ask this one question of those who insist on total victory for one side or the other. “How many dead people is that worth?”. Insist on an actual number. For total victory either way, anything less than 1 million is utterly unrealistic. It could be much, much worse. Do you really want that?

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

“Shark tank” was the way I have been describing the recent Congressional subcommittee hearing I attended, in disguise, as support to RFK, Jr., as well as in my capacity as an extraterrestrial anthropologist learning about the ritualistic practices of the natives. I hope that doesn’t sound superior or judgmental. It’s my way of describing the feeling of entering a reality quite different from what I’m used to.

My “disguise” consisted of the traditional garb of the natives when entering the public arena of ritual verbal combat. It includes an unnecessary outer garment called a “sports jacket” in the local dialect. I’m not sure what it has to do with sports, though I suspect it may have health benefits by inducing sweating in the absence of vigorous physical activity. The other notable item of ceremonial regalia is known as a “necktie,” a kind of thin, silk kerchief tied around the neck of males only. The semiotics of this accessory are ambiguous. It seems to signal dominance (the lower-status photographers did not wear one). However, it also suggests submission to a tacit social code, or possibly a yoke of servitude. To show up at such a hearing in a T-shirt would be a high-status play, not a low-status play.

Anyway, at first I felt a little bad about calling the hearing a shark tank, because I don’t like to perpetuate negative stereotypes about sharks by equating the behavior of these magnificent animals to what transpired at the hearing. The sharks might not appreciate being compared to Congresspeople. Ooh, that was mean joke. I must be getting infected by the sensibilities of the shark tank.

The social dynamics I witnessed at the hearing were all too human. My study of Rene Girard was useful in understanding what took place.

Girard was a philosopher and theologian famous for two main ideas: mimetic desire, and sacrificial violence. The latter, he said, originated from the original social problem: retributive violence. Cycles of vengeance would escalate, embroiling more and more people into blood feuds in which eventually everyone took sides. These would arise especially in times of social stress, which could be entirely external in origin (bad weather, crop failures, plagues, etc.).

Lest this internecine strife tear society apart, people arrived at a rather irrational but effective solution — in an act of unifying violence, both sides would turn on a convenient victim or group of victims, preferably from a dehumanized subclass, people who were not full members of society and whose deaths, therefore, would be less likely to provoke a new cycle of vengeance. Once murdered, once the blood lust was discharged and the need to act was met, peace would reign once again. Since the problem was solved by killing the victim, people concluded, with typical perverse human logic, that the victim must have been the cause of the problem. The victims were thus memorialized in myth and legend as villains and monsters.

Many, if not most, ancient cultures institutionalized these killings and used them preemptively by murdering sacrificial victims to maintain social harmony. This, as I have argued elsewhere, was the origin of capital punishment as well as festival kings.

The legacy of this practice is that humans are exquisitely attuned to who is acceptable and who is not, who’s in the in-group and who’s in the out-group, who are the popular kids and who are the weird kids. A primal social reflex operates in the schoolyard as it does in the halls of Congress. Anyone who is seen playing with the weird kid takes on the taint of weirdness themselves. This kind of guilt-by-association is the hallmark of sacrificial dynamics. Even to join in the jeering with insufficient enthusiasm casts a person under shadow of suspicion. The safest course is to join in and outdo everyone else in the ferocity of your denunciations of the weird kid. Or the witches, the Jews, the Communists, the anti-vaxxers, the conspiracy theorists, or whomever is subject to the current designation. I call this mob morality. “Good” means conforming to the prevailing designation, joining in its execution, and displaying the symbols, uttering the catchwords, and holding the opinions of the in-group.

In the McCarthy era, merely having been present at a meeting attended by members of the Communist Party was enough to ruin one’s career. One needn’t have been an actual Communist. It was enough to be labeled a “fellow traveler,” a “com-simp” (Communist sympathizer), or “pinko.” The power of the accusation did not depend on any objective fact. Once the cloud of suspicion was raised, any prudent person would hasten to distance themselves from the accused, just to be sure.

In the Congressional hearing I attended, the Democrats on the committee deployed this tactic by calling Bobby Kennedy an anti-Semite, and through various chains of association, linking him to White supremacy, replacement theory, synagogue massacres, and racial violence. It did not matter that the man is obviously no anti-Semite. He is one of the most ardently pro-Israel politicians around. (I don’t agree with him on this issue—if I’m on any “side” of it at all, it is the side of the Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.) However, mob dynamics do not require that the victim is actually guilty of any crime.

Even if the victim is guilty of a crime, he or she is not guilty of what the dehumanization accuses, which is to be less than fully human. Everyone is innocent of that. That’s why a primal indignation wells up in most people as they watch mob dynamics in action. It is the original injustice.

Most of the comments I heard afterwards expressed this indignation. The dehumanizing tactics seem not to be working, whether in the hearing or in the broader media landscape. If such tactics begin to fail more generally, the future is bright, because these are how elites turn popular political energy against itself.

A certain personality type is adept at harnessing mob morality and riding it to power. Such people are aware that the crowd is always looking for someone to signal who the next untouchables are. The ringleader of the cool girls on the playground says, “Sarah has cooties!” and everyone else knows what to do. It matters not at all whether Sarah actually has cooties (originally the word meant “lice,” but when I was in grade school no one knew that. All we knew was that the term signaled ostracism.)

In the grown-up world, instead of having cooties we are accused of being White supremacists, racists, transphobes, conspiracy theorists, New Agers, anti-vaxxers, sexual predators, and so forth. There is no defense against such accusations; in fact, attempting to rebut them only further establishes the association. Because remember, it is the accusation itself that signals who is untouchable. Disputing its veracity doesn’t help.

The supreme irony of our time is that many of the above-listed epithets used to dehumanize opponents are themselves descriptions of dehumanization. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, and anti-Semitism see certain others as less than fully human. Using them to dehumanize opponents feeds the cultural and psychic field that is responsible for racism etc. to begin with.

Today, the sacrificial victims of mob morality are not literally lynched, murdered, or burnt at the stake. Yet these metaphors from an earlier era indeed convey what is happening. The dynamics are the same, and the result is likewise a removal from the social, if not the physical, world, through deplatforming, canceling, and silencing. Once the signal has been sent, the resulting hysteria does indeed resemble a shark feeding frenzy, as each member of the mob hastens to grab a bite of in-group acceptance by piling onto the victim.

Mob dynamics normally have a life cycle. Once the victims have been sacrificed, social harmony reigns again. That can happen, however, only when the victim subclass is too small and powerless to effectively resist. Today we have two large social factions attempting to use mob tactics against each other. The subtext of current controversies in the digital public square is, “Those people on the other side are inexcusable, horrible, deplorable… subhuman.” Both sides reinforce the same basic agreement that has so often led, historically, to paroxysms of violence.

We can reverse the pattern. The antidote to mob morality is to establish and spread the understanding of the full and equal humanity of each human being. It is to refrain from convenient disparaging caricatures and stereotypes that reduce people to labels. It is to hold, instead, a story of each other that makes room for the highest expression of our humanity. It requires a kind of unrelenting courtesy, an insistence on generosity of interpretation, and a willingness to put something else above victory.

The tactics of dehumanization are powerful, universally used in wars—and in politics. It is counterintuitive in the political realm to put anything higher than victory. Everyone is convinced that they are on the side of good. Therefore, victory for themselves means victory for good. But that is a delusion. No one is fundamentally more good than anyone else, and none of us are made of better stuff than the rest.

What else shall we place on the altar, if not victory? I won’t try to answer that question for you. That’s between you and God. All I can say is that for me, remembrance of and devotion to what I hold sacred is what forestalls my reflex to dehumanize the other, to make the other an other, and to perpetuate the age-old war of man against man. The reflex is strong. It feels safe to accuse in concert with those around me. But I think we are ready to be done with that. Any victory worth having must come through different means.

An incisive depiction of the state of the world now.

Botticelli made this painting on the description of a painting by Apelles, a Greek painter of the Hellenistic period. Apelles' works have not survived, but Lucian recorded details of one in his On Calumny: “On the right of it sits Midas with very large ears, extending his hand to Slander while she is still at some distance from him. Near him, on one side, stand two women—Ignorance and Suspicion. On the other side, Slander is coming up, a woman beautiful beyond measure, but full of malignant passion and excitement, evincing as she does fury and wrath by carrying in her left hand a blazing torch and with the other dragging by the hair a young man who stretches out his hands to heaven and calls the gods to witness his innocence. She is conducted by a pale ugly man who has piercing eye and looks as if he had wasted away in long illness; he represents envy. There are two women in attendance to Slander, one is Fraud and the other Conspiracy. They are followed by a woman dressed in deep mourning, with black clothes all in tatters—she is Repentance. At all events, she is turning back with tears in her eyes and casting a stealthy glance, full of shame, at Truth, who is slowly approaching.”

When a fictional world becomes sufficiently complex and sketched out, you can typically start to recognize almost all of the basic concepts of a philosophy within it. Someone has already explained this for Taoist concepts with Winnie the Pooh.

I like Spongebob Squarepants, it’s lighthearted and you can see some important principles illustrated too if you look carefully enough. I hope to write a series of articles in which I explore these from a Dharmic angle. To start with, you must ask yourself what the three main characters, Spongebob, Patrick and Squidward, personify.

If you look carefully, you can see, they illustrate the three Gunas, the three qualities that permeate all life. Everything is made up of Rajas, Sattva and Tamas. Rajas is becoming, Sattva is being, Tamas is ceasing to be.

Food similarly can be fitted into one of these categories. I have been over this before, but just to give some examples again, spicy foods will be Rajasic, they stimulate the senses. Sattvic foods are things like most fruit and vegetables, they provide clarity of mind. Tamasic foods sedate, they insulate us from understanding how things really are.

And you can see these same three principles illustrated in the deities of the Trimurti. Brahma is the creator. He is not really worshipped. Then comes Vishnu, the sustainer. Finally comes Shiva, the destroyer. Most Hindus primarily worship either Vishnu or one of his avatars, or Shiva.

Now I want you to take a look at Spongebob, Squidward and Patrick. Can you see, who illustrates which of the three gunas? It’s easy.

Spongebob is Rajasic in nature. He is young, adventurous, still full of plans, desires and ambitions. He starts out looking to get a job, he wants to get his driver’s license and he wants to get a girlfriend (Sandy). He doesn’t yet know how the world works, so in all his endeavors he depends on Squidward and Patrick. Squidward and Patrick are ultimately much more mature and they have chosen two of the spiritual paths that people most commonly take.

Because Spongebob is still young and full of desire, he has not yet had to find a spiritual path. Spongebob is bad at everything he does: He can’t lift weights, he can’t drive a car, he can’t think of a better joke than ripping his pants, he plays the Bassinet, but happens to be terrible at it. But because he is young and full of Rajasic energy, his lack of talents and skills does not harm his self-esteem.

Children have to be Rajasic. Parents generally don’t like this. They tend to wish their child was more like Squidward. But if you take away the Rajasic element from a child, the child will burn out. It’s easy to extinguish the flame, by drowning the child in your own desires. Many parents in our age are guilty of this.

Squidward is Sattvic. Squidward knows exactly how the world functions, which is why he is so disappointed and miserable. How Squidward deals with this reality, is by attempting to follow what Krishna, avatar of Vishnu recommends to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: To go through the motions, to perform his duties, without attachment.

He works at the Krusty Krab, he hates it, but he tries to the best of his ability to accept the hand that life has dealt him. He is a Vaishnavist. The Vaishnavists encourage the life of a householder, that of the nuclear family. Squidward tries to preserve the things he values. Hence he lives in an Easter Island head, he orients his mind towards his ancestors. He values the classical arts, although, like Spongebob, he has no innate talents for them. In contrast to Spongebob, Squidward has developed self-awareness with maturity. But this self-awareness, is also what limits him. Often he imagines things to be impossible, that Spongebob and Patrick proceed to go on doing.

You can understand the philosophy of Squidward, through one sentence from the episode Slimy Dancing:

“SpongeBob, dancing isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be ART. And art is suffering!”

Squidward aims to teach Spongebob to prepare for a life of duty.

Finally, there is Patrick. Patrick is in the process of forgetting, of extinguishing. Unlike Spongebob and Squidward, he has no job. He is a Shaivist: He follows the path of Shiva, the destroyer. He is a renunciate.

Patrick makes no attempts to preserve any tradition he inherited. He has the least fancy of the three houses, being content living underneath a rock. The Shaivists are the most ascetic among the main Hindu traditions. Because he is in the process of forgetting, of renouncing the world, he is easily fooled. As an example, Squidward can fool him into thinking Spongebob does not want to be his friend. By indulging in Tamasic foods, he has gained a lot of weight.

To understand Patrick’s philosophy, think of this sentence:

“Dumb people are just blissfully unaware of how dumb they are.”

Now the most interesting thing, is to look at how the three interact. When Spongebob and Patrick come together there is happiness, but nothing productive is achieved. They go jellyfishing, or they go out and eat icecream. In contrast, when the energy and enthusiasm of Spongebob is combined with the realism and understanding of Squidward, work can be done. Things can be created, based on a tradition that predates Spongebob’s arrival, like a Krabby Patty. It is through the interaction between Spongebob and Squidward, that the world can be sustained.

On the rare occasions Squidward and Patrick interact, there is typically just destruction and chaos. Take the previously mentioned example, of Squidward fooling Patrick into thinking he’s not his friend. Or, consider what happens when Patrick answers the phone, which is normally Squidward’s job: “Is this the Krusty Krab?” “No, this is Patrick.” They lose the customer.

This happens because Patrick and Squidward ultimately represent conflicting but complementary traditions. The world can’t exist without Patrick, because the life of Squidward in isolation is one of suffering. It is to be aware at all times, of all the limitations. He knows he has a shit job. He knows he can’t properly play the clarinet. He knows he has no wife.

The world can not exist without Squidward either, because Patrick alone, would plunge the world into darkness, decay, ignorance, nihilism, chaos and destruction. There would be no Krusty Krab. There would be no Krabby Patty. Patrick is the man who solves the problem of there being too much in life. But Patrick without Squidward, means there would eventually be nothing.

So the question you’ll find yourself faced with is: Alright, we have Squidward who worships Vishnu. We have Patrick who worships Shiva. So who worships Brahma? Spongebob? And that’s the thing that makes Hindu philosophy so different from the Western philosophical tradition. Although Shaivists have the tendency to ascribe qualities of creation and sustaining of everything to Shiva, the creator of the Trimurti, Brahma, isn’t really worshipped.

In most Abrahamic traditions, we’re enthusiastic about the creation of the world. But like Gnostic Christians, the Dharmic religions are much more ambivalent about its creation. Brahma generally just isn’t worshipped much, he has a handful of temples, but there exists no specific tradition devoted to him. And the reason for that may tie into the fact that the Dharmic religions see incarnation as self-evident.

In contrast to the Christian tradition, in which we are promised eternal life after death, you don’t have to accomplish anything in the Dharmic religions to live forever. Die and you will simply become another living being. It is escaping the creation, that is a challenge. So why worship the creator?

If you want the equivalent of a Brahma worshipper in Spongebob Squarepants, the closest thing would be the relationship between Spongebob and Mr. Krabs. Mr. Krabs created the Krusty Krab. He created the Krabby Patty. How he accomplished it is a secret that must be kept safe at all cost from the invisible demon (Plankton).

But he is not a character worthy of worship. And Squidward knows this. His relationship is one of reluctant subservience. Patrick presumably knows it too. It’s Spongebob, who is still young, naive and keen to dance to the tunes of Mr. Krabs.

And the trick as a viewer, is to balance the three gunas. You can be like Squidward, you can develop full awareness. And you should strive for awareness, the Sattva guna is held in highest regard. But with full awareness comes suffering, unless you can imbibe yourself with the naive energetic enthusiasm of the sponge, or can sedate yourself like the starfish who lives under a rock.

You may think to yourself: “How can Squidward be held in high regard? He’s mean and cynical.” But ultimately, all the three characters are flawed beings, who are in themselves good. Patrick is useless and stupid, but he means well. Spongebob is destructive and incompetent, but wants to do good. And Squidward is cynical and disillusioned. But whenever someone genuinely mistreats Spongebob, like the man who ordered a pizza and then complained about not receiving a drink, Squidward intervenes on his behalf.

Squidward only looks like the bad guy of the three, because he was given the heaviest weight to carry in life. And in carrying this burden, he is actually the most noble. The souls of the three characters are ultimately pure and unblemished. The challenges life casts upon them are just so severe it makes them look like flawed beings. Mr. Krabs is more explicitly morally flawed, his soul is tainted by greed.

Then finally, we have to consider that all three characters, Squidward above all, are losers. They have all achieved just a shadow of what a human being can achieve. Patrick just does nothing all day. Squidward works at a fast food restaurant he hates. And Spongebob fails at just about everything he attempts.

Why is that? Well fundamentally, they’re born into a flawed world. It is a world that puts good people at the bottom, literally and metaphorically. They live at the mercy of the human Gods high above, who can fish them out of the ocean at any moment, or annihilate Bikini Bottom with nuclear weapons. In this world the powerful are evil, the powerless are good.

This ties into another concept I hope to elaborate upon in a future article, the dark era that these three noble men found themselves born into: The Kali Yuga.

On January 8, 2023 the US has to release a federal prisoner who is known as one its most notable opponents of treatment of Cuba since its revolution. She is Ana Belén Montes, and she will be freed after over 21 years in a federal military prison.

She was a top official on Latin America in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who, solely out of moral conviction, gave Cuba information on top secret US military plans and operations. Unrepentant in her trial, she defended herself saying, “I obeyed my conscience rather than the law. … I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.”

Ana Belén is one of the many Americans who have taken a moral stance in opposition to the actions of their government, and who were subsequently hunted as traitors or spies. Edward Snowden was another such figure, having exposed how the National Security Agency’s spying on the US population and leaders of other countries. Rather than spend much of his life in a federal prison, Snowden has opted to live in exile in Russia.

While the US movement in defense of Cuba did not champion the case of Ana Belén as with the very similar situation of the Cuban Five, she is recognized as a hero in Cuba. In 2016, the famed Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez dedicated a song to her, explaining, “The prisoner I mentioned yesterday… is Ana Belén Montes and she was a high official of the US secret services. When she knew that they were going to do something bad to Cuba, she would pass on the information to us. That is why she is serving a sentence of decades…Much evil did not happen to us because of her. Freedom for her.”

Silvio Rodríguez le dedicó esta canción a la presa política del imperialismo Ana Belén Montes, quien saldrá libre este fin de semana después de pasar 20 años de prisión en aislamiento total #FreeAnaBelen #FreeLeonardPeltier #FreeJulianAssange #FreeAlexSaab pic.twitter.com/4OphzkUXVp

— Roi Lopez Rivas (@RoiLopezRivas) January 4, 2023

Ana Belén did not receive any money from Cuba for her 16 years of work. Knowing the dire risks she faced, she acted out of a belief in justice and solidarity with Cuba. For over 60 years, the country has suffered under a US blockade – repeatedly condemned by the United Nations – imposed in retaliation for choosing national sovereignty over continued neocolonial status. US supported terrorism against Cuba has killed 3,478 and caused 2,099 disabling injuries over the years.

One of the charges brought against Ana Belén was having helped assure Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that Cuba represented no military threat to the US, and therefore contributed to avoiding another US regime change war that would have meant the death of countless Cubans. She also acknowledged having revealed the identities of four American undercover intelligence officers working in Cuba.

“The Queen of Cuba” hailed from a family of feds

Born in West Germany on February 28, 1957, a Puerto Rican citizen of the United States, and a high official in the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Belén was convicted as a spy for alerting Cuba to the interventionist plans that were being prepared against the Cuban people.

In 1984 while working as a clerk in the Department of Justice, Ana Belén initiated her relationship with Cuban security. She then applied for a job at the DIA, the agency responsible for foreign military intelligence to the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The DIA employed her in 1985 until her arrest at work 16 years later. She became a specialist in Latin American military affairs, was the DIA’s principal analyst on El Salvador and Nicaragua, and later Cuba.

Because of her abilities, Ana Belén became known in US intelligence circles as “the Queen of Cuba”. Her work and contributions were so valued that she earned ten special recognitions, including Certificate of Distinction, the third highest national-level intelligence award. CIA Director George Tenet himself presented it to her in 1997.

“She gained access to hundreds of thousands of classified documents, typically taking lunch at her desk absorbed in quiet memorization of page after page of the latest briefings,” which she would later write down at home and convey to Cuba.

Avoiding capture through discretion, until the intercept came

On February 23, 1996, the Cuban Ministry of Defense asked visiting American Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll to warn off Miami Brothers to the Rescue planes that planned to again fly over Havana. Carroll immediately informed the State Department.

Instead of ending the provocations, the US let the planes fly, and two “Brothers to the Rescue” planes were shot down over Cuba the next day. The US exploited the flare-up to sabotage the growing campaign to moderate the US blockade of the island. The US official who arranged Admiral Carroll’s meeting was Ana Belén. Her explanation that the date was chosen only because it was a free date on the Admiral’s schedule was accepted.

Nevertheless, a DIA colleague reported to a security official that he felt Ana Belén might be under the influence of Cuban intelligence. He interviewed her, but she admitted nothing. She passed a polygraph test.

Ana Belén had access to practically everything the intelligence community collected on Cuba, and helped write final reports. Due to her rank, she was a member of the super-secret “inter-agency working group on Cuba”, which brings together the main analysts of federal agencies, such as the CIA, the Department of State, and the White House itself.

The Washington Post reported, “She was now briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council and even the president of Nicaragua about Cuban military capabilities. She helped draft a controversial Pentagon report stating that Cuba had a ‘limited capacity’ to harm the United States and could pose a danger to U.S. citizens only ‘under some circumstances.'”

Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a US agent in Cuba’s Ministry of Interior that Cuba had uncovered and imprisoned, was released and traded for three of the Cuban 5 in 2014. He had “provided critical information that led to the arrests of those known as the “Cuban Five;” of former State Department official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers; and of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s top Cuba analyst, Ana Belén Montes.”

In 1999 the National Security Agency intercepted a Cuban communication. It revealed a spy high in the hierarchy, who was associated with the DIA’s SAFE computer system. It meant the spy was likely on staff of the DIA. The suspect had also traveled to Guantánamo Bay in July 1996. Coincidentally, Ana Belén worked in the DIA and had traveled to the Bay on DIA business. The spy was using a Toshiba laptop, and it was discovered she had one. A decision was taken to break into her flat and copy the hard drive.

Since the case being put together indicated she was providing information to Cuba, she was arrested by FBI agents on September 21, 2001 while in her DIA office. She was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage for Cuba. “She told investigators after her arrest that a week earlier she had learned that she was under surveillance. She could have decided then to flee to Cuba, and probably would have made it there safely.” But her political commitment made her feel “she couldn’t give up on the people (she) was helping.”

Nigerian commentator Owei Lakemfa presented ten reasons he thought Ana Belén Montes avoided detection during her 16 years in the DIA. Among the most important was that she was extremely discreet and kept to herself. She lived alone in a simple apartment north of the US capital, and memorized documents, never taking any home. And she never received unexplainable funds.

Ironically, her brother was an FBI special agent, and her sister an FBI analyst who “played an important role in exposing the so-called Wasp Network of Cuban agents [the Cuban 5 and 7 others] operating in Florida.”

Ana Belén avoided the death penalty for high treason, highly likely in the post September 11 atmosphere, by pleading guilty before the US federal court handling her case. Since she acknowledged her conduct, and told the court how she worked, she was sentenced to “only” twenty-five years. However, she was imprisoned in conditions designed to destroy her, as the case with Julian Assange today. She was sent to special unit of a federal prison for violent offenders with psychiatric problems.

“I obeyed my conscience rather than the law”

In her October 16, 2002 trial statement, she declared that she obeyed her conscience:

“There is an Italian proverb that is perhaps the one that best describes what I believe: The whole world is one country. In that ‘world country’, the principle of loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself, is an essential guide for harmonious relations between all our ‘nation-neighborhoods’.

This principle implies tolerance and understanding for the different ways of others. It mandates that we treat other nations the way we wish to be treated – with respect and compassion. It is a principle that, unfortunately, I believe we have never applied to Cuba.

Your Honor, I got involved in the activity that has brought me before you because I obeyed my conscience rather than the law. Our government’s policy towards Cuba is cruel and unfair, deeply unfriendly; I feel morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values ​​and our political system on it.

We have displayed intolerance and contempt for Cuba for four decades. We have never respected Cuba’s right to make its own journey towards its own ideals of equality and justice. I do not understand how we continue to try to dictate how Cuba should select its leaders, who its leaders cannot be, and what laws are the most appropriate for that nation. Why don’t we let Cuba pursue its own internal journey, as the United States has been doing for more than two centuries?

My way of responding to our Cuba policy may have been morally wrong. Perhaps Cuba’s right to exist free of political and economic coercion did not justify giving the island classified information to help it defend itself. I can only say that I did what I thought right to counter a grave injustice.

My greatest wish would be to see a friendly relationship emerge between the United States and Cuba. I hope that my case in some way will encourage our government to abandon its hostility toward Cuba and work together with Havana in a spirit of tolerance, mutual respect and understanding.

Today we see more clearly than ever that intolerance and hatred – by individuals or governments – only spreads pain and suffering. I hope that the United States develops a policy with Cuba based on love of neighbor, a policy that recognizes that Cuba, like any other nation, wants to be treated with dignity and not with contempt.

Such a policy would bring our government back in harmony with the compassion and generosity of the American people. It would allow Cubans and Americans to learn from and share with each other. It would enable Cuba to drop its defensive measures and experiment more easily with changes. And it would permit the two neighbors to work together and with other nations to promote tolerance and cooperation in our one ‘world-country,’ in our only world-homeland.”

Brutal prison conditions aimed to destroy Ana Belén

Jürgen Heiser of the German solidarity Netzwerk-Cuba reported that “Ana Belén has been isolated in conditions that the UN and international human rights organizations describe as ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ and torture. Her prison conditions were further exacerbated after her trial, when she was placed in the Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Carswell, outside of Fort Worth, Texas. The FMC is located on a US marine compound and previously served as a military hospital… It includes a high security unit set aside for women of “special management concerns” that can hold up to twenty prisoners. A risk of “violence and/or escape” are specified as grounds for incarceration in the unit. This is where the “spy” Ana Belén is being held in isolation, in a single-person cell.”

Her cell neighbors have included one who strangled a pregnant woman to get her baby, a longtime nurse who killed four patients with massive injections of adrenaline, and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, the Charles Manson follower who tried to assassinate President Ford.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram has regularly covered the abuses against the women inmates at Fort Carswell Carswell prison, which has also housed two other political prisoners Reality Winner and Aafia Siddiqui. Detainees have suffered gross violations of their human rights, including documented cases of police abuse, suspicious deaths where the investigations into them have been blatantly obstructed, deaths due to the denial of basic medical attention, rape of prisoners by guards, and exposure to toxic substances. In July 2020, 500 of the 1400 prisoners had Covid. The Star Telegram reported “the facility showed a systemic history of covering misconduct up and creating an atmosphere of secrecy and retaliation…”

Ana Belén wrote, “Prison is one of the last places I would have ever chosen to be in, but some things in life are worth going to prison for, or worth doing and then killing yourself before you have to spend too much time in prison.”

She has been subjected to extreme conditions in that prison, akin to those imposed on Assange. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has reported that:

She can only have contact with her closest relatives, since her conviction is for espionage.

No one can inquire about her health or know why she is in a center for people with mental problems, when she does not suffer from them.

She cannot receive packages. When her defenders sent her a letter, it has been returned by certified mail.

Only people on a list (no more than 20 who have known her before her incarceration and have been approved by the FBI) ​​can correspond, send books, and visit Ana. Few people have visited her besides her brother and niece.

She cannot interact with other detainees in jail, and was always alone in her cell.

She is not allowed to talk on the phone, except to her mother once a week for 15-20 minutes.

She could not receive newspapers, magazines or watch television. After a dozen years in prison, the restrictions were slightly relaxed.

Karen Lee Wald noted in 2012, “If she is taken out of her cell in the isolation unit for any reason, all other prisoners are locked in their cells so they cannot speak to her. Basically, she has been buried alive.”

David Kovics, the renowned leftist songwriter, was moved to pay tribute to her in song. Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was jailed by the US during his fight for Puerto Rican independence, said, “I think that every Puerto Rican who loves justice and freedom should be proud of Ana Belén. What she did was more than heroic. She did what every person who believes in peace, justice and freedom and in the right of every nation to govern itself in the best possible way and without the intervention or threat of anyone, would have done.”

On Monday, Charles III entered Buckingham Palace for the first time as king. It was the British people’s first real chance to greet their new sovereign. Huge crowds thronged outside the gates, letting out deafening cheers every time he raised his hand to wave. His Majesty seemed genuinely touched—and a little surprised.

For decades, Charles has been mildly unpopular with the British public. For half a century, he has been the British media’s favorite punching-bag. Films and television shows about the Royal Family always cast him in a negative light. On a good day, his approval rating hovers around 50 percent.

Yet this anti-Charles sentiment has always seemed a little forced. Britain’s new king is one of the most fascinating men in public life. 

The 70 years he spent waiting to inherit the throne certainly were not wasted. Charles used his family’s wealth and influence exactly as one ought to do. Above all, he has devoted himself to good works. He is not only Britain’s foremost philanthropist, but also her greatest patron of the arts. And he has used his spare time to broaden his own horizons. He has traveled almost constantly, studying with the greatest philosophers, painters, and poets (and polo players) in the world. Once upon a time, we would have called him a renaissance man. 

Charles is the first “high church” monarch since James II. The British aristocracy have always been decidedly “low church.” They prefer simpler forms of worship, more in keeping with the Protestant tradition. Meanwhile, Charles—now Supreme Governor of the Church of England—has one foot in the Orthodox Church. As Prince of Wales, he was known to sneak away from Clarence House to go on retreat at Mount Athos and created a Byzantine-style prayer corner in his private residence.

Still, Charles is firmly devoted to the Anglican Church. He has long served as a patron of the Prayer Book Society, an organization for liturgical conservatives.

Charles is a theological conservative as well. During a trip to Pennsylvania, he opted to worship at a Presbyterian church rather than the local Episcopal cathedral. (The Episcopal Church is a member of the Anglican Communion, whose “Mother Church” is the C of E. It is also the Communion’s most liberal province.) When a layman asked him why, he reportedly said, “You know very, very well why I cannot worship in an Episcopal Church.”

The King is also a follower of the Traditionalist School, a group of scholars and philosophers who are committed to the idea of “resacralization.” As Charles himself explained,

The teachings of the Traditionalists should not, in any sense, be taken to mean that they seek, as it were, to repeat the past—or, indeed, simply to draw a distinction between the present and the past. Theirs is not a nostalgia for the past, but a yearning for the sacred and, if they defend the past, it is because in the pre-modern world all civilizations were marked by the presence of the sacred.

Charles’s affinity for the Traditionalist School explains his novel translation of the title Fidei Defensor. First bestowed on Henry VIII by Leo X (before all the unpleasantness), it is usually translated as “Defender of the Faith”—that is, the Christian faith. Yet Charles floated the idea of calling himself “Defender of Faith”—that is, a belief in the presence of the sacred. 

The idea went over badly, even with Rowan Williams, then archbishop of Canterbury. Usually seen as a moderate, Williams insisted that the monarch “has a relationship with the Christian Church of a kind he does not have with other faith communities.” Happily, Charles dropped the whole business. 

This Traditionalism may also explain his (in)famous love for Islam. This affinity hasn’t made him many friends on the British right. Yet Charles isn’t naïve. He has studied extensively with Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a Sufi philosopher who was exiled from Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini. The King understands Islam at its best and at its worst. So, he feels a duty to help “build bridges between Islam and Christianity and to dispel ignorance and misunderstanding.” On the other hand, he has raised millions of dollars to help Christians who are being persecuted by Islamists in the Middle East. 

Charles III is a traditionalist (with a little “t”) as well. To quote His Majesty,

These traditions, which form the basis of mankind’s most civilized values and have been handed down to us over many centuries, are not just part of our inner religious life. They have an intensely practical relevance to the creation of real beauty in the arts, to an architecture which brings harmony and inspiration to people’s lives and to the development within the individual of a sense of balance which is, to my mind, the hallmark of a civilized person.

Charles has spent most of his adult life in his efforts to recreate that balance. In 2005 he founded the Prince’s School of Traditional arts, which seeks to “to continue the living traditions of the world's sacred and traditional art forms.” He also serves as patron of the Temenos Academy, whose fellows include localist Hossein Nasr, Rowan Williams, and the American localist Wendell Berry. 

I think the affinity between Charles and Berry is instructive. Both are traditionalists, though not exactly conservatives. They’re more what my friend Bill Kauffman would call “reactionary radicals.” Both are critics of industrialism, consumer capitalism, and scientism. Both champion agrarianism. They believe that small-scale agriculture (that is, family farms) are the only basis for a stable and happy society. As a matter of fact, Charles has written a couple of books on organic gardening. 

Both are also what we might call Christian ecologists. They’re environmentalists driven less by fear of climate change than by love for God’s creation. As the new king wrote in his book Harmony, “We are not the masters of creation. No matter how sophisticated our technology has become, the simple fact is that we are not separate from Nature. Just like everything else, we are nature.”

The King is no primitivist, however. Charles is also a pioneer of the New Urbanism. Since the 1980s, the King has been the most outspoken critic of modernist architecture in the English-speaking world. And, here, he pulls no punches. “You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe,” he said: “when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that.” 

In 1993, he decided to put his theories to the test. Charles hired the architect Léon Krier to build a brand-new community on four hundred acres of grassland outside of Dorchester. The result is the town of Poundbury. 

In Poundbury, all the buildings are designed in the local styles of South West England. Of course, there are no skyscrapers; a “tall” building might be four or five stories tall. Shops and residences are mixed; there’s no hideous business district surrounded by soulless housing units. This also minimizes the need for cars, saving residents time and money while reducing the need for emissions. 

Even the King’s worst critics have been forced to admit that his “feudal Disneyland” has been a triumph. Poundbury is beautiful. It is prosperous. And it proves that life can still be lived on a human scale.

Of course, the King is far from perfect. Britain’s media will be sure to point that out whenever they get the chance—and whenever they don’t. Yet every now and then the press will also shed light on Charles’s virtues. They don’t mean to, of course. Usually, they’re taking a shot at him and the bullet ricochets. Still, these moments have allowed the British people to catch a real glimpse of their new king.

Take the “black spider memos.” For decades, it had been rumored that Prince Charles wrote to senior politicians with the hope of effecting policy changes. The media had long dubbed him the “meddling prince.” Then, in 2015, the Guardian (a far-left British newspaper) convinced a government tribunal to publish the letters in full.

The monarchy’s opponents were thrilled. After all, the British Crown has survived in the 21st century by being purely apolitical. Elizabeth II was content to play a purely symbolic role in government. But not Charles. As king, it was suggested, he would insist upon his right to rule as well as reign. The British people (they said) must choose: monarchy or democracy? Of course, the choice was clear. It seemed to spell death for England’s thousand-year-old crown.

Once the public actually got to read the memos, however, all of that changed. They saw him pleading with Tony Blair not to cut subsidies to beef farmers, and instead to help them develop better treatments for bovine tuberculosis. He urged the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to develop better public housing for low-income families. He shared with the Minister for the Environment his concerns about the destruction of rainforests and the overfishing of sea bass.The media had always sought to paint Charles as a goof and a snob. Yet his letters showed him to be witty, self-effacing, intelligent, and compassionate. The British people were amazed and delighted. For a moment, they loved the prince nearly as much as he loved them. That is who Charles is. He is a good man. And he’ll be a good king, if we let him.

The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.
– Mohandas K. Gandhi

I once read an account of bullying in rural America in the early 20th century. The narrator said, “If a victim did not stand up to them, there was no limit to how far the bullies would go.” He described them tying another child to the train tracks as a train approached (on the parallel track). There was no appeasing the bullies. Each capitulation only whetted their appetite for new and crueler humiliations.

The psychology of bullies is well understood: compensation for a loss of power, reenactment of trauma with roles reversed, and so forth. Beyond all that, though, the Bully archetype draws from another source. On some unconscious level, what the bully wants is for the victim to cease being a victim and to stand up to him. That is why submission does not appease a bully, but only invites further torment.

There is an initiatory possibility in the abuser-victim relationship. In that relationship and perhaps beyond it, the victim seeks to control the world through submissiveness. If I am submissive enough, pitiable enough, the abuser may finally relent. Other people might step in (the Rescuer archetype). There is nothing intrinsically wrong with submission or what improvisational theater pioneer Keith Johnstone called a low-status play. There are indeed some situations when doing that is necessary to survive. However, when the submissive posture becomes a habit and the victim loses touch with her capability and strength, the initiatory potential of the situation emerges. The bully or abuser intensifies the abuse until the victim reaches a point where the situation is so intolerable that she throws habit and caution to the wind. She discovers a capacity within her that she did not know she had. She becomes someone new and greater than she had been. That is a pretty good definition of an initiation.

When that happens, when the victim stands his ground and fights back, quite often the bully leaves him alone. On the soul level, his work is done. The initiation is complete. Of course, one might also say that the bully is a coward who wants only submissive victims. Or one might say that resistance spoils the sought-after psychodrama of dominance and submission. There is no guarantee that the resistance will be successful, but even if it is not, the dynamics of the relationship change when the victim decides she is through being a victim. She may discover that a lot of the power the bully had was in her fear and not in his actual physical control.

Until that shift happens, even if a rescuer intervenes, the situation is unlikely to change. Either the intervention will fail, or the rescuer will become a new abuser. The world will ask again and again whether the victim is ready to take a stand.

Please do not interpret this as a cavalier suggestion to someone in an abusive relationship to simply “take a stand.” That is easier said than done, and especially easy to say in ignorance of just what sort of courage would be required. In some situations, especially when children are involved, there is no way to resist without horrible risk to oneself or innocent others. Yet even in the most hopeless situations, the victim often learns a certain strength that she didn’t know she had. Because submission often leads to further, intensifying violation, eventually she will reach her breaking point where courage is born. In that moment, freedom from the abuser is more important than life itself.

The relationship between our governing authorities and the public today bears many similarities to the abuser-victim dynamic. Facing a bully, it is futile to hope that the bully will relent if you don’t resist. Acquiescence invites further humiliation. Similarly, it is wishful thinking to hope that the authorities will simply hand back the powers they have seized over the course of the pandemic. Indeed, if our rights and freedoms exist only by the whim of those authorities, conditional on their decision to grant them, then they are not rights and freedoms at all, but only privileges. By its nature, freedom is not something one can beg for; the posture of begging already grants the power relations of subjugation. The victim can beg the bully to relent, and maybe he will—temporarily—satisfied that the relation of dominance has been affirmed. The victim is still not free of the bully.

That is why I feel impatient when someone speaks of “When the pandemic is over” or “When we are able to travel again” or “When we are able to have festivals again.” None of these things will happen by themselves. Compared to past pandemics, Covid is more a social-political phenomenon than it is an actual deadly disease. Yes, people are dying, but even assuming that everyone in the official numbers died “of” and not “with” Covid, casualties number one-third to one-ninth those of the 1918 flu; per-capita it is one-twelfth to one-thirty-sixth.1 As a sociopolitical phenomenon, there is no guaranteed end to it. Nature will not end it, at any rate; it will end only through the agreement of human beings that it has ended.2 This has become abundantly clear with the Omicron Variant. Political leaders, public health officials, and the media are whipping up fear and reinstituting policies that would have been unthinkable a few years ago for a disease that, at the present writing, has killed one person globally. So, we cannot speak of the pandemic ever being over unless we the people declare it to be over.

Of course, I could be wrong here. Perhaps Omicron is, as World Medical Association chairman Frank Ulrich Montgomery has warned, as dangerous as Ebola. Regardless, the question remains: will we allow ourselves to be held forever hostage to the possibility of an epidemic disease? That possibility will never disappear.

Another thing I’ve been hearing a lot of recently is that “Covid tyranny is bound to end soon, because people just aren’t going to stand for it much longer.” It would be more accurate to say, “Covid tyranny will continue until people no longer stand for it.” That brings up the question, “Am I standing for it?” Or am I waiting for other people to end it for me, so that I don’t have to? In other words, am I waiting for the rescuer, so that I needn’t take the risk of standing up to the bully?

If you do put up with it, waiting for others to resist instead, then you affirm a general principle of “waiting for others to do it.” Having affirmed that principle, the forlorn hope that others will resist rings hollow. Why should I believe others will do what I’m unwilling to do? That is why pronouncements about the inevitability of a return to normalcy, though they seem hopeful, carry an aura of delusion and despair.

In fact, there is no obvious limit to what people will put up with, just as there is no limit to what an abusive power will do to them.

If the end of Covid bullying is not an inevitability, then what is it? It is a choice. It is precisely the initiatory moment in which the victim—that is, the public—discovers its power. At the very beginning of the pandemic I called it a coronation: an initiation into sovereignty. Covid has shown us a future toward which we have long been hurtling, a future of technologically mediated relationships, ubiquitous surveillance, big tech information control, obsession with safety, shrinking civil liberties, widening wealth inequality, and the medicalization of life. All these trends predate Covid. Now we see in sharp relief where we have been headed. Is this what we want? An automatic inertial trend has become conscious, available for choice. But to choose something else, we must wrest control away from the institutions administering the current system. That requires a restoration of real democracy; i.e., popular sovereignty, in which we no longer passively accept as inevitable the agendas of established authority, and in which we no longer beg for privileges disguised as freedoms.

Despite appearances, Covid has not been the end of democracy. It has merely revealed that we were already not in a democracy. It showed where the power really is and how easily the facade of freedom could be stripped from us. It showed that we were “free” only at the pleasure of elite institutions. By our ready acquiescence, it showed us something about ourselves.

We were already unfree. We were already conditioned to submission.

In Orwell’s 1984, Winston’s interrogator O’Brien states: “The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism.” The Covid era has seen endless indignities, humiliations, and abuse heaped upon the public, each more outrageous than the last. It is as if someone is performing a psychological experiment to see how much people are willing to take. Let’s tell them that masks don’t work, and then reverse it and require them to mask up. Let’s tell them they can’t shake hands. Let’s tell them they can’t go near each other. Let’s shut down their churches, choirs, businesses, and festivals. Let’s stop them from gathering for the holidays. Let’s make them inject poison into their bodies. Let’s make them do it again. Let’s make them do it to their children. Let’s censor their first-hand stories as “false information.” Let’s feed them obvious absurdities to see what they’ll swallow. Let’s make promises and break them. Let’s make the same promises again and break them again. Let’s require authorization for their every movement. Wow, they’re still going along with it? Let’s see how much more they will take.

I have written the above as if the bullying powers were a bunch of cackling sadists delighting in the humiliation of their victims. That is not accurate. Most people staffing our governing institution are normal, decent human beings. While it is also true that these institutions are hospitable environments for martinets, control freaks, and sadists, more often they turn people into martinets, control freaks, and sadists. These individuals are more symptom than cause of the generalized abuse of the public today. They are functionaries, playing the roles that a systemically abusive drama requires. Causing suffering is not their root motivation, it is to establish control. The quest for power doubtless finds justification in the idea that it is all for the greater good. Yes, they think, it would be bad if evil people were in charge of the surveillance, censorship, and coercive apparatus, but fortunately it is we, the rational, intelligent, far-seeing, science-based good guys who are at the helm.

Through the absolute conviction by those who hold power that they are the good guys, power transforms from a means to an end. As maybe it was to begin with—Orwell dispels the false justifications of power when he has O’Brien say:

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'

The theme resumes on the next page:

He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'

Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.

'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?

Thus it is that the privation, humiliation, and suffering of those they dominate is pleasing to the controllers. It isn’t suffering per se that pleases them. They may even consider it a regrettable necessity. It pleases them as a hallmark of submission.

Covid-era policies cannot be understood merely through the lens of public health. In an earlier series of essays I explored them from the perspective of sacrificial violence, mob morality, dehumanization, and the exploitation of these by fascistic forces. Equally important is the perspective of power. Seeing Covid through the lens of rational public health, of course we should expect the “end of the pandemic” quite soon. Seeing through the lens of power, we cannot be so sanguine, any more than the bullied child can hope the bully will stop because, after all, I’ve done everything he told me to.

The bully doesn’t want the victim to do X, Y, and Z for their own sake. He wants to establish the principle that the victim will do X, Y, Z, or A, B, or C, on demand. That’s why arbitrary, unreasonable, ever-shifting demands are characteristic of an abusive relationship. The more irrational the demand, the better. The controllers find it satisfying to see everyone dutifully wearing their masks. As with O’Brien, it is power, not actual public safety, that inspires them. That is why they roundly ignore science casting doubt on masks, lockdowns, and social distancing. Effectiveness was never the root motivation for those policies to begin with.

I learned about this too in school. In the senseless, degrading busy work and the arbitrary rules, I detected a hidden curriculum: a curriculum of submission.3 The principal issued a series of trivial rules under the pretext of “maintaining a positive learning environment.” Neither the students nor the administration actually believed that wearing hats or chewing gum impeded learning, but that didn’t matter. Punishments were not actually for the infraction itself; the real infraction was disobedience. That is the chief crime in a dominance/submission relationship. Thus, when German police patrol the square with meter sticks to enforce social distancing, no one need believe that the enforcement will actually stop anyone from getting sick. The offense they are patrolling against is disobedience. Disobedience is indeed offensive to the abusive party, and to anyone who fully accepts a submissive role in relation to it. When “Karens” report on their neighbors for having more than the permitted number of guests, is it a civic-minded desire to slow the spread that motivates them? Or are they offended that someone is breaking the rules?

It is uncomfortable for those who have knuckled under to a bully to see someone else stand up to him. It disrupts the idea of powerlessness and the role, which may have become perversely comfortable, of the victim. It invokes the initiatory moment by making an unconscious choice conscious: “I could do that too.” To resist the abuser asks others if they will resist too. It is far from inevitable that they will accept the invitation, yet the example of courage is more powerful than any exhortation.

Today a wave of resistance to Covid policies is surging across the globe. You’ll see little mention of it in mainstream media, but thousands and tens of thousands are protesting all across Europe, Thailand, Japan, Australia, North America… pretty much anywhere that lockdowns and vaccine mandates have been applied. People are risking arrest to defy lockdowns and curfews. They are walking out of jobs, losing licenses, enduring forced closures of their businesses, sometimes even losing custody of their children because they refuse to comply with vaccine mandates. They are getting kicked off social media for speaking out. They are sacrificing concerts, sports, skiing, travel, college, careers, and livelihoods. Under compulsory vaccination laws In Austria, they will soon risk prison.

Some people have much more to lose than others by speaking out, refusing vaccination, or engaging in civil disobedience. As someone who has relatively little to lose, it is not my job to demand other people be brave. It isn’t anyone’s job. We can, though, describe the reality of the situation. That fosters bravery, because it isn’t only external fear, force, and threat that breeds submission. In an abusive relationship the victim often adopts some of the abuser’s narrative: I am weak. I am contemptible. I am powerless. You are right. I am wrong. I need you. I deserve this. I am crazy. This is normal. This is OK.

When the victim internalizes the abuser, I say that the bandits have breached the castle walls. I know well what it is like to be a fugitive in my own castle, dodging the patrolling invaders to protect my secret sanity.

My understanding of the bullying victim comes from direct experience. I was among the youngest in my grade and reached puberty quite late. At age 12 I was a scrawny 4’10”, 90-pound weakling among the hulking adolescents of my former friend group. Their cruel jokes and torments were mostly not intended to cause physical pain, but rather to assert dominance and humiliate. Fighting back was not much of an option—the ringleader was literally twice my weight. When I tried to fight back, the gang looked at each other with amusement. “Uh oh,” they said, “Chucky’s getting mad! Did your daddy tell you to stand up to us, Chucky?” The next thing I knew, I was on the floor in a submission hold, surrounded by a chorus of mocking laughter. That was what happened when I resisted. Yet submission didn’t work either; it appeased them for a day or perhaps a few minutes or not at all. It was an invitation to further violence. In this difficult situation, I internalized the abusers by taking on their opinion of myself as pathetic and contemptible.4

In this case, literally fighting back was futile. My initiatory journey took the form of stepping into the unknown of finding new friends—a frightening prospect in the cacophony and chaos of the junior high cafeteria. Exiting the role of victim doesn’t usually mean physical combat or legal combat, though it might. Invariably, it means refusing to comply with violation or humiliation. In real life it could be blocking a caller, getting a restraining order, or simply running away. It cannot be a mere gesture. It must be determined and sustained until the old role no longer beckons.

It is worth noting that none of my abusers were particularly bad people. Nor were those who joined in the laughter, nor those who stood by in disapproving silence. They went on to become solid contributing members of society, good fathers and husbands. There was something in the confluence of our biographies that called them to the role of abuser, enabler, or bystander at that moment. The abuser-victim drama issues a powerful casting call. An abusive spouse may no longer occupy that role in a subsequent marriage. The roles allow each actor to discover—and possibly integrate and transcend—something in themselves. So it is society-wide as well. What will the functionaries of our abusive, degrading, oppressive system become when the drama ends? Already a lot of them are getting sick of their roles. The victim does the abuser no favor by prolonging the drama.

Earlier I wrote that often, the point of courage comes when the pain of submission grows intolerable. The erstwhile victim reaches a breaking point and throws caution to the wind. The abuser may still wield the outward apparatus of power, but no longer does that power have an ally within the victim, who becomes ungovernable. A lot of people are reaching that breaking point now. Powering the aforementioned wave of resistance is a hurricane of fury brewing just offshore of official reality. If you want to get a sense of it, subscribe to the Telegram channel “They Say Its Rare.” It displays without comment Tweets from vaccine-harmed individuals and their friends and families. Thousands upon thousands of Tweets, raw, outraged, and indignant. Most of these people will never comply with vaccination again no matter what the pressure, nor will many of their friends. Perhaps this partly explains low public uptake of boosters. (That and the fact that the first two shots did not deliver the promised rewards of immunity or freedom.)

The drama continues. The bully does not relent at the first sign of resistance. On the soul level, the bully serves his purpose only when he provokes real, sustained courage. As resistance grows, so grows the coercion. We are very nearly at a tipping point. The scale is evenly balanced—so finely, perhaps, that the weight of one person may tip it. Could that person be you? Whatever reasons you have to comply, to stay silent, to keep your head down—and they may be very good reasons indeed—please do not accept the insidious false hope that someone else will take the risk if you do not.

What can one person do? Will it matter if I resist, if too many others do not? Five percent of the population can be locked up, locked in, or locked out of society. Forty percent cannot. Will you resist and risk being one of the five percent? Safer to wait and see, isn’t it. Safer to wait until after critical mass has been reached, and join the winning side.

Of all the lies of a controlling power, the key lie is the powerlessness of its victim. That lie is a form of sorcery, coming true to the extent it is believed. All modern people live within a pervasive metaphysical version of that lie. In a Newtonian universe of deterministic forces, indeed it matters little what one person does. It is wholly irrational for the discrete and separate self to be brave, to defy the mob, or to stand up to power. Sure, if lots of people do it, things will change, but you aren’t lots of people, you are just one person. So why not let other people do it? Your choice won’t much affect theirs.

To refute that logic with logic would require a metaphysical treatise that reclaims self and causality from their Cartesian prison. So I won’t use logic. Instead I’ll appeal to Logos—the fiery logic of the heart. Something in you knows that your private struggles and the choices of just-one-person are significant. Furthermore, something in you knows when the time has come to make the choice, to be brave. You can feel the approach of the breaking point. It may feel like, “I’ve had enough. Enough!” It may be a calm clarity. It may be a leap in the dark. Probably you recognize the moment I’m describing; most of us have gone through some life initiation of this kind, bursting out of a cocoon of fear. In that moment you know something significant has happened. The world looks different. That is because it is different.

An abuser, whether a person or a system, offers an opportunity to graduate to a new degree of sovereignty. We claim by example what a human being is. When made at risk, such a claim issues forth as a prayer. An intelligence beyond rational understanding responds to that prayer, and reorganizes the world around it. We may experience this as synchronicity, which seems to happen with uncanny frequency just at those moments where one takes a leap in the dark. She leaves the abusive spouse in the dead of night with nowhere to go. Yet she is not reckless, because she knows It is time. She steps out into nothingness and Lo! Something meets her foot. A path invisible from the starting point opens with each step along it.

So it shall be. The world will rearrange itself around the brave choices millions of people are making as they trust the knowledge, It is time. If you join us, you will be witness to a most marvelous paradox. The transition to a more beautiful world is a mass awakening into sovereignty, far beyond the doing of any hero, any leader, any individual. Yet you will know that it was you—your choice!—that was the fulcrum of the turning of the age.

Third part of a timeline of ivermectin-related events in theCOVID-19 pandemic

See Part 1 and Part 2

Mika Turkia M.Sc.
mika.turkia@alumni.helsinki.fi
September 30, 2021

Abstract

This review presents a third part extending two previous parts of a timeline describing ivermectin-related events in the COVID-19 pandemic, with this third part covering a period from July 2021 to September 2021.

Among the most notable developments during the period were allegations that a clinical trial about prophylaxis and late treatment of COVID-19 with ivermectin by Elgazzar et al. carried out in Egypt in mid-2020was fraudulent, with some of the introduction plagiarized and the patient data claimed to appear fabricated.

The government of Egypt initiated an investigation on the issue, the results of which were not available bythe end of the period.

Ivermectin skeptics noted that the retraction of the Elgazzar et al. trial, along with suspicions about failed randomization in another trial by Niaee et al., seemed to invalidate the various meta-analyses which had included these trials. Ivermectin proponents argued that the retraction did not affect the conclusions of their meta-analyses. Later, the validity of an Argentinian prophylaxis trial by Carvallo et al. was questioned; as an observational trial it had not been included in the meta-analyses.

Among new trial results were the results of ’Together’ trial led by a Canadian university but carried out in Brazil. The primary endpoint was extended emergency room observation or hospitalization, and the secondary endpoint was mortality. Fluvoxamine produced a statistically significant result for the first endpoint but not for the second. In 677 treated patients vs 678 controls ivermectin indicated some risk reduction but the differences were not statistically significant. One of the authors concluded that ivermectin had ’noeffect whatsoever’ on their endpoints. On the other hand, a intervention program in La Pampa province of Argentina with 3,269 treated and 18,149 untreated indicated mortality rates of 1.5% vs 2.1% (p=0.029),and in subjects over 40 years 2.7% vs 4.1% (p=0.005). A Cochrane meta-analysis concluded that all aspects regarding ivermectin’s efficacy for either treatment or prophylaxis were currently unknown.

After a 24-fold increase in ivermectin prescriptions from US pharmacies compared to the pre-pandemic baseline, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists campaigned against ivermectin, calling for‘an immediate end’ to prescribing, dispensing and using it. However, this campaigning also resulted in an increased public awareness of ivermectin.

A prominent social media figure with over ten million followers revealed that he had been prescribed ivermectin for COVID-19. The fact was subsequently propagated internationally by the news media which represented ivermectin as a dangerous ‘horse dewormer’. Several international news outlets published a false story about emergency rooms in Oklahoma being full of people having overdosed ivermectin, blocking out other patients including gunshot victims.

A Japanese doctor who had treated 500 patients with ivermectin reported having received death threats after telling about his methods on a television program. A group of British scientists which had published a meta-analysis about ivermectin reported having received death threats after questioning the efficacy of ivermectin. An ivermectin discussion forum was flooded with pornographic images and incoherent babbling.

A hospital was harassed for not administering ivermectin.

An Indian physician claimed that due to the World Health Organization’s opposition to ivermectin, India’s second wave had been countered by an almost nationwide covert use of early treatment protocols including ivermectin. Another physician reported that in one city in Amazonas, Brazil, a mass distribution of ivermectin had resulted in the city having no hospitalized COVID-19 patients during the surge of the gamma variant in the first half of 2021.

Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) faced criticism for its ivermectin advocacy and communication style. With regard to treatment protocols, the addition of dual anti-androgen therapy to FLCCC’sMATH+ hospital treatment protocol was said to have restored the protocol’s efficacy against the delta variant in intensive care unit patients. FLCCC also published a scoping review of the pathophysiology ofCOVID-19, emphasizing the role of platelet activation with the release of serotonin and the activation and degranulation of mast cells contributing to the hyper-inflammatory state.

In an overview, the period from April 2020 to March 2021 could be characterized as a period of argumentation and attempted rationality, the period from April 2021 to June 2021 as a period of emotion and campaigning,and the period from July 2021 to September 2021 as a period of chaos.

Current best practices for meta-analyses were found to be unsound. A new approach based on individual patient data analysis was proposed.

Introduction

The period covering the first part of the timeline from April 2020 to March 2021 [1] could be characterized as a period of research, argumentation and rationality. During the period, smaller-scale research and experimentation of ivermectin for COVID-19 was pursued and eventually, alliances and groups of clinicians and researchers were formed to promote combination treatment protocols that included ivermectin. However, at the end of the period, first the European Medicine Agency (EMA) and second the World Health Organization(WHO) advised against the use of ivermectin except in clinical trials.

The second period from April 2021 to June 2021 [2] could be characterized as a period of emotion and campaigning. During the period, a failure of the approach based on argumentation led to a disillusionment of clinicians and researchers in favor of ivermectin treatments and stopped communication between the proponents and administrative agencies. Instead, ivermectin proponents turned directly to the public and the clinicians. The analysis related to the second part of the timeline focused on possible structural corruption and the role of the WHO.

The third period from July 2021 to September 2021 covered in this paper might best be characterized as a period of chaos, initiated by accusations of plagiarism and data fabrication in one of the early ivermectin trials [3]. As the trial was included in published meta-analyses of ivermectin’s efficacy [4,5,6], the allegations undermined the believability of these meta-analyses, although the authors of the meta-analyses at first stated that the exclusion did not essentially change the results of the analyses. Later, one of the groups diverged from this view.

The history, indications and safety of ivermectin have been described in the previous parts. Some events preceding July 2021 not included in the previous parts of the timeline have been included.

March 2020

On March 25, Waltner-Toews et al. wrote that COVID-19 requires a new approach to science [7]. They referred to ‘post-normal science’ (PNS) developed in the 1990s by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz which represented a novel approach for the use of science on issues where ‘facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent’ [8]. As an example, PNS recommended that models to predict and control the future should be replaced by models to map our ignorance about the future; it also stressed the importance of trust, participation and transparency, all of which had been lacking during the COVID-19pandemic. Waltner-Toews et al. wrote that ‘everywhere, we are seeing a total breakdown of the epistemic consensus required to make normal science “work”. This is happening not only in the fields you might expect– behavioral psychology, sociology, and ethics – but also in virology, genetics, and epidemiology. In other words, when “applied scientists” and “professional consultants” are no longer in their comfort zones but find themselves in a post-normal context, fitness for purpose changes meaning. And even in established fields, disagreements can’t be hidden (or consensus enforced) from broad audiences: are the present draconian measures justified or not? More data (even “reliable data”) and better predictive models cannot resolve the“distribution of sacrifice” which involves, among other things, the arbitration of dilemmas that appear at every scale. Hiding behind some general notion of science or the “lack of data” – as if data had the power to resolve these dilemmas – is feckless, feeble and confused’.

November 2020

On November 29, an article by Cherkes et al. in the clinical practice guidelines and recommendations section of an Ukrainian journal Proceedings of the Shevchenko Scientific Society – Medical Sciences gave a detailed description of FLCCC’s MATH+ hospital treatment protocol [9].

April 2021

On April 14, an article by Seet et al. described an open-label randomized trial (n=3,037) describing a 42-day prophylaxis regimen with four different medications, one of which was povidone iodine throat spray(n=735), compared to 500 mg per day of oral vitamin C (n=619), indicated 44.7% lower risk of severe disease (5.7% vs 10.3%, RR 0.55, p=0.05) and 31.1% lower risk of infection (46.0% vs 70.0%, RR 0.69,p=0.01) [10,11]. A single 12 mg dose of ivermectin (n=617) did not produce a statistically significant difference. Hydroxychloroquine produced a slightly smaller risk reduction than povidone iodine.

May 2021

On May 11, two Norwegian doctors presented data on ivermectin trials to the Norwegian government [12].

On May 26, an investigational monoclonal antibody for mild to moderate COVID-19, sotrovimab, was issued an emergency use authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Sotrovimab was to be administered as a single intravenous infusion of 500 mg over 30 minutes within 10 days of symptom onset [13].

The wholesale price of a single dose was USD 2,100 [14].

On May 28, Bloomberg Law discussed YouTube’s censorship practices [15]. YouTube chief executive officer Susan Wojcicki commented that ‘the complex nature of misinformation online presents a number of challenges for platforms such as YouTube and I welcome your suggestions as to what we can do better’.

June 2021

On June 1, a commentary by Chosidow et al. asked whether ivermectin would be a potential treatment forCOVID-19 [16].

On June 4, an article by Payne et al. about evidence-based approach to early outpatient treatment considered zinc gluconate, melatonin and vitamin D feasible options but repeated the usual objections to ivermectin[17].

On June 7, an article by Sajidah et al. discussed the host nuclear transport machinery in detail [18].

On June 10, Kumar et al. discussed the role of vitamins and minerals as immunity boosters in COVID-19, pointing out for example the protective roles of calcium, magnesium, copper, iodine, selenium, manganese,cobalt and sulfur, and the possibly harmful effect of iron [19].

On June 14, an article by Duru et al. described an in silico study suggesting that ivermectin bound well toSARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein [20].

On June 17, an article by Yanagida et al. concluded that ivermectin had low proarrhythmic risk [21].

On June 18, an article by Mart´ınez investigated the antioxidant properties of several pharmaceuticals, positing the idea that oxide reduction balance might help explain the toxicity or efficacy of these drugs, and noting that ivermectin and molnupiravir, two powerful COVID-19 drugs, were not good electron acceptors,and the fact that they were not as effective oxidants as other studied molecules might be an advantage [22].

On June 18, a commentary by Taibbi discussed politicization and censorship of ivermectin in the US [23,24].

On June 18, a Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten interviewed two Norwegian proponents of FLCCC protocols, one of whom was FLCCC founding member Eivind Hustad Vinjevoll [25] and the other Anders Bugge.

The Norwegian Medicines Agency remained unconvinced, stating that it was not their task to assess unapproved treatments: they only followed the recommendations of US National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization.

On June 21, referring to lack of evidence and low quality of trials, eleven Norwegian senior physicians disagreed with Vinjevoll’s and Bugge’s views [26].

On June 22, Huang et al. summarized recent advances in the exploration of ivermectin’s anticancer properties [27].

On June 27, Salvador et al. published a protocol of a prospective observational study aiming to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a single-dose ivermectin for treatment of uncomplicated strongyloidiasis in immunosuppressed patients [28].

On June 28, Bugge replied to the Norwegian senior physicians [29].

On June 28, an article by Roman et al. presented a meta-analysis of ten randomized controlled trials(RCTs) including 1,173 patients with mild or moderate disease [30]. The authors wrote that in comparison to standard of care or placebo, ivermectin did not reduce all-cause mortality, length of stay or viral clearance.

They concluded that ivermectin was not a viable option to treat COVID-19 patients. The article was based on a previous preprint [31,32]. The CovidAnalysis group noted that in addition to numerous uncorrected errors,the preprint and the PDF of the article stated that the authors had no conflicts of interest, yet Pasupuleti’saffiliation listed in the abstract on the journal’s website was a company delivering brand and portfolio commercial strategy for biotech and pharma, working with 24 of the top 25 pharmaceutical companies as well as hundreds of biotechs globally [33,34]. The company also stated that they were working withthe European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries (EFPIA) to support their activities, and that the company’s regulatory consultancy practice in the US was preparing a number of emergency use authorizations to the FDA [35].

On June 28, an article by Patterson et al. presented a model for predicting COVID-19 severity and chronicity [36]. A score measuring severity of COVID-19 was defined as (IL-6 + sCD40L / 1000 + VEGF / 10 + 10 * IL-10) / (IL-2 + IL-8). A score measuring chronicity (long haul symptoms) was defined as (IFN-γ+ IL-2) / CCL4-MIP-1β. CCL4 (chemokine ligands 4), also called MIP-1β(macrophage inflammatory protein-1β),was related to the C-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CCR5) pathway. About VEGF, see also [37,38,39,40].

On June 30, Thailand’s FDA and Chiang Mai University’s faculty of pharmacy warned against using ivermectin for COVID-19 [41].

On June 30, an article by Nippes et al. reviewed research on the presence of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, ivermectin, dexamethasone, remdesivir, favipiravir and some HIV antivirals in the environment, and presented treatment technologies for each drug [42].

On June 30, Syed interviewed FLCCC’s Marik about treatments and the origin of SARS-CoV-2 [43].

July 2021

On July 1, HART group consisting of UK doctors compared adverse events reported to the WHO of ivermectin (20 deaths and 5,484 adverse events since 1992), remdesivir (534 deaths and 6,707 adverse events since 2020) and COVID-19 vaccines (6,667 deaths and 1,198,200 adverse events since 2020) [44]. They also suggested that some of the ongoing studies were designed to fail and actually aimed at stalling the adoption of ivermectin.

On July 1, Vice magazine wrote about ivermectin advocates, saying that ‘proponents of a dubious COVID19 cure have signaled they’re ready for a long fight against what they see as censorship in medicine and media’ [45].

On July 2, an article by Vallejos et al. described a low dose RCT with 501 relatively low-risk outpatients in Argentina which did not produce statistically significant results (NCT04529525) [46,47].

On July 2, an article by Adegboro et al. reviewed the antiviral effects of ivermectin [48].

On July 2, a Twitter post reported that a video featuring Nobel prize winner Satoshi ¯Omura discussing Japanese ivermectin emergency use authorization bill had been removed by YouTube for violating their terms of service [49].

On July 2, a blog post by Crawford investigated the details and the background of the meta-analysis by Roman et al., noting that the meta-analysis came at a politically contentious moment, the language and behavior appeared political, the work was error-laden, took research out of its true context, used numbers that didn’t seem to come from the actual studies, chose papers testing ivermectin under the least favorable circumstances, gave unexplained and inappropriate weights to the small amount of data that stood as outliers to the bigger picture, and extracted an unfavorable conclusion from a massive average mortality reduction that did not quite reach statistical significance while consistently complaining about the low quality of evidence represented by the studies [50]. Crawford asked whether these were ‘just mistakes’, adding that ‘a medical journal published all this – just in time to push back the Lawrie case. Think on all that for a moment’.

On July 3, an open letter signed by 43 researchers and clinicians requested retraction of the meta-analysis by Roman et al. [51,52].

On July 6, an article by Hill et al. (submitted on January 20) presented a meta-analysis including eleven RCTs of moderate/severe infection [5]. The analysis indicated 56% reduction in mortality (3% vs 9%, RR0.44, 95% CI 0.25-0.77, p=0.004), favorable clinical recovery and reduced hospitalization. In contrast to the preprint stating that ivermectin should be validated in larger studies before the results are sufficient for review by regulatory authorities [53], the published version said that a network of large clinical trials was in progress to validate the results seen to date.

On July 6, a TrialSite news report suggested that the WHO might have been attempting to limit the use of ivermectin to neglected tropical diseases only [54,55,56]. The report also discussed the apparent lack of objectivity of Wikipedia, noting that it had, among other omissions, mentioned the rejection of FLCCC’s review by Frontiers of Pharmacology but failed to mention that it had later been published in the American Journal of Therapeutics, failed to mention the meta-analysis by the BIRD group, and failed to mention USNIH’s transitioning to a neutral stance on ivermectin. The report asked why any positive aspects would be omitted unless there was an explicit goal to completely discredit this possible therapeutic option and researchers looking into the matter.

On July 6, Yahoo News UK published a news story featuring ivermectin in a positive light [57].

On July 6, WHO announced that it had updated its patient care guidelines to include interleukin-6 receptor blockers tocilizumab (by Roche) and sarilumab (by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi) [58]. The strong recommendation was based on findings from a prospective and a living network meta-analysis including data(also prepublication data) from over 10,000 patients enrolled in 27 clinical trials. The meta-analyses were said to show that in severely or critically ill patients these drugs reduced the odds of death by 13% and the odds of mechanical ventilation by 28% compared to standard of care, with high certainty of evidence [59]. WHO said tocilizumab and sarilumab were the first drugs found to be effective against COVID-19 since corticosteroids were recommended in September 2020 [58]. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, however, that the drugs would remain inaccessible to most, and called on manufacturers to reduce prices and make supplies available to low-and middle-income countries. Ghebreyesus also encouraged companies to agree to transparent, non-exclusive voluntary licensing agreements using WHO’s Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) platform and the Medicines Patent Pool, or to waive exclusivity rights. Rochwerg et al. noted that compared with other treatments IL-6 receptor blockers were expensive but the the recommendation did not take account of cost effectiveness [59]. They also acknowledged that access to these drugs was challenging in many parts of the world and that the recommendation could exacerbate health inequity. However, the strong recommendation aimed at providing a stimulus to improve global access to these treatments.

On July 6, an article by WHO Rapid Evidence Appraisal for COVID-19 Therapies (REACT) WorkingGroup presented a meta-analysis on the efficacy of tocilizumab and sarilumab [60]. Absolute mortality risk was 22% for IL-6 antagonists compared with an assumed mortality risk of 25% for standard of care or placebo, with especially sarilumab showing very low efficacy. Regarding conflicts of interests, one of the authors reported being involved with two patents owned by Genentech/Roche, one on treating COVID-19with an IL-6 antagonist, and another for tocilizumab and remdesivir combination therapy for COVID-19pneumonia. Two other authors reported being co-inventors of a filed patent covering the use of low-dose tocilizumab for treatment of viral infections. Nine other authors also reported associations with Roche.

Seven authors reported associations with Sanofi. Three reported being employees of and owning stock in Regeneron, and two reported other associations with it. Also associations with, for example, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Gilead Sciences, ViiV Healthcare, Janssen, Cilag, Thera technologies, Lilly, Biohope, Gebro, Bristo lMyers Squibb, Abbvie, Pfizer, Novartis, PharmaMar, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene,Alexion, Inatherys, AB Science, Argenx, Oncoarendi, Biogen, Ose Pharmaceutical, Shionogi, Genetech, EliLilly, Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB, Sanofi Genzyme, Aspen Pharmacare, Crist´alia and AM Pharma were reported.

On July 6, a press release by M´edecins Sans Fronti`eres (MSF) noted that the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche continued to have de facto market exclusivity and tocilizumab was likely to remain unaffordable and inaccessible for most of the world [61]. MSF wrote that Roche had kept the price of tocilizumab very high in most countries (USD 410 in Australia, USD 646 in India and USD 3,625 in the US per dose of 600mg for COVID-19, while the manufacturing cost was estimated to be around USD 60).

On July 6, an article by Malin et al. presented a key summary of German national treatment guidance for COVID-19 inpatients [62]. The guideline recommended corticosteroids, prophylactic anti-coagulation, and optionally tocilizumab. Convalescent plasma, azithromycin, ivermectin and vitamin D3were recommended against. With regard to ivermectin, it was said that achievable tissue concentrations seemed to be far below the half maximal inhibitory concentration in vitro, that in February 2021 only one peer-reviewed RCT with 72 patients was available for consideration, and that the numerous preprints did not report clinically relevant endpoints or presented with significant methodological issues and a high risk of bias.

On July 6, a commentator asked why WHO targeted IL-6 instead of going upstream to block NF-kB [63] which in turn inhibits IL-6 (ivermectin is an NF-kB antagonist [64]) [65,66].

On July 6, the US president Biden proposed the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a new organization under the NIH, aimed at facilitating and accelerating more innovation and breakthroughs in fundamental biomedical and health research [67].

On July 6, an article by Margolin et al. described a small controlled trial (n=113) that suggested benefits from supplementation with zinc, zinc ionophores quina plant bark extract and quercetin, vitamins C, D3and E, and L-lysine [68].

On July 7, an article by Cadegiani et al. about an open-label observational prospective outpatient study indicated 98.0% lower risk of hospitalization (0% vs 19.7%, RR 0.02, p<0.001) and 94.2% lower risk of ventilation (0% vs 6.6%, RR 0.06, p=0.005) [69,70,71]. The authors said treatments showed overwhelming improvements; therefore, it had become ethically questionable to conduct further studies employing full placebo arms in early COVID-19.

On July 7, a preprint by Hazan et al. described a retrospective late treatment study with 24 outpatients and a synthetic control arm calculated from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)database [72]. The study used a combination therapy protocol with ivermectin, doxycycline, zinc, vitaminD and vitamin C, resulting in 100% survival and cure in unselected ambulatory ‘moderate to severely’ illCOVID-19 outpatients, with some initially presenting with SpO2values as low as 73% and 77%. Despite a symptom to treatment delay of over nine days, mean SpO2values rose from 86.5 to 93.1 in the first 24 hours.

On July 8, an article by Muthusamy et al. described an in silico study identifying 32 anti-parasitic compounds effectively inhibiting the receptor binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein [73]. The most effective compounds, in a descending order, were selamectin, ivermectin, artefenomel, moxidectin, posaconazole, imidocarb, piperaquine, cepharantine, betulinic acid and atovaquone.

On July 9, Cameron et al. proposed a two-axis model to describe variability in decision-making among critical care physicians [74]. The authors emphasized the necessity for a better understanding of the root causes of physician-attributable differences in patient management in order to foster a better collaborative and educational environment to help critical care systems adapt to emerging ideas. The first axis of the model measured interventionism (early, aggressive treatment) versus minimalism (’wait and see’) preferences. The second axis measured individualism versus collectivism.

On July 12, a preprint by Neil et al. described a Bayesian meta-analysis of ivermectin’s effectiveness in COVID-19 [75].

On July 13, a news report in the Atlantic by Mazer discussed FDA’s recent approval of Alzheimer’s disease medicine aducanumab [76]. It said aducanumab was approved despite scant evidence of benefit, and against the nearly unanimous advice of the agency’s expert advisers, with ten members against approval and one being uncertain [77]. Aducanumab was priced at USD 56,000 a patient per year. The estimated cost of treating all patients with it was larger than NASA’s yearly budget. The article said that ‘the actions of drug regulators, like those of industrial polluters, are often freighted with unacknowledged externalities .. . the FDA specifically does not really worry about those larger societal issues and doesn’t really worry about cost. . . instead, the agency is judged by how many drugs it can approve’.

On July 14, an opinion by Flam said that high hopes for ivermectin owe more to politics than to science[78].

On July 14, Mathachan et al. reviewed current uses of ivermectin in dermatology, tropical medicine andCOVID-19 [79].

On July 15, an article by Ravikirti et al. describing a clinical trial in India on patients with mild to moderate disease (n=112) using 12 mg of ivermectin on two consecutive days did not produce statistically significant results [80].

On July 15, referring to a 2020 preprint by Elgazzar et al. [3], a news article by Davey in the Guardian said that a huge study supporting ivermectin as COVID-19 treatment had been withdrawn over ethical concerns [81]. The article described ivermectin being promoted by right wing figures, then interviewed a person described as a medical student, Jack Lawrence, who had analyzed the preprint and the associated dataset for an assignment as a part of his master’s degree. He had found that the introduction section appeared plagiarized, raw data apparently contradicted the study protocol on several occasions, there were errors in data formatting, and the dataset didn’t match the numbers in the preprint. He also described that ivermectin hype was ‘dominated by a mix of right-wing figures, anti-vaxxers and outright conspiracists’.

A data analyst Nick Brown had helped Lawrence to analyze the data. He said that the main error was that at least 79 of the patient records were obvious clones of other records. An epidemiologist, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, commented that the data appeared totally faked, and since the study had been included in most meta-analyses, if removed, the conclusions of these meta-analyses would have their conclusions entirely reversed. Yet another researcher said the data appeared fabricated. Lawrence concluded that ‘something is clearly broken in a system that can allow a study as full of problems as the Elgazzar paper to run unchallenged for seven months . . . thousands of highly educated scientists, doctors, pharmacists, and at least four major medicines regulators missed a fraud so apparent that it might as well have come with a flashing neon sign’.

On July 15, a post by Lawrence on an online disinformation website discussed retraction of the preprint by Elgazzar et al. [82]. Jack Lawrence introduced himself on his blog as a journalist and a disinformation researcher [83].

On July 15, a blog post by Brown analyzed details of the study by Elgazzar et al [84].

On July 15, a blog post by Meyerowitz-Katz pictured ivermectin for COVID-19 research as ‘potentially the most consequential medical fraud ever committed’ [85].

On July 15, the Covid Analysis group removed Elgazzar et al. from their meta-analysis. Since the study was a preprint, the analysis of 37 peer-reviewed studies (n=11,352) in the July 15 version 99 of 60 studies [86] remained unchanged, indicating 88% efficacy in prophylaxis (95 % CI 70%-95%), 74% efficacy in early treatment (95% CI 58%-84%) and 42% efficacy in late treatment (95% CI 19%-58%). Since Elgazzar etal. only concerned prophylaxis and late treatment, also the early treatment results remained unchanged, indicating 64% reduction in mortality (95% CI 15%-85%). In comparison to the previous, July 9 version 98 of 62 studies [87] (Elgazzar study included prophylaxis (n=200) and late treatment (n=400) parts), the new version indicated the same or slightly improved prophylaxis efficacy but slightly widened confidence intervals, with all studies indicating 85% (95% CI 75%-91%) vs 85% (95% CI 75%-92%) efficacy, and RCTs indicating83% (95% CI 39%-95%) vs 84% (95% CI 25%-96%) efficacy. For late treatment, the new version indicated lower efficacy, with all studies indicating 46% (95% CI 30%-59%) vs 43% (95% CI 26%-56%) efficacy, and RCTs indicating 40% (95% CI 11%-60%) vs 29% (95% CI 3%-48%) efficacy.

On July 16, FLCCC and BIRD gave a joint statement saying that there was no scientific basis to state that the removal of one study from meta-analyses would ‘reverse results’, yet the Guardian article had reported it as a fact [88]. They also said that according to the most recent analyses by BIRD, excluding the Elgazzar data from the meta-analyses by Bryant and Hill did not change the conclusions of these reviews, with the findings still clearly favoring ivermectin for both prevention and treatment. They added that even the prestigious Institute Pasteur in France had confirmed that the evidence was sound [89].

On July 16, Hill tweeted that ‘after removal of Elgazzar trial from ivermectin meta-analysis, borderline significant effects still seen for hospitalization and survival, but small number of endpoints. More evidence still needed from large ongoing randomized trials – must be continued’ [90].

On July 16, a news article said that a study that had ‘lit up the right-wing sphere of COVID deniers had been retracted over questionable methods’, adding that it was ‘just totally faked’ [91].

On July 16, a South African news article reviewed the retraction [92]. It also featured video interviews of patients, doctors and officials which concentrated on the black market of ivermectin in South Africa and the possible dangers of counterfeit medications.

On July 16, an opinion by Razak, the rector of International Islamic University of Malaysia, aimed at ‘setting the pace for a more courageous narrative’ about ivermectin’s possibilities in COVID-19 [93].

On July 17, the United Arab Emirates announced the treatment results for intravenously administered monoclonal antibody sotrovimab, produced by GlaxoSmithKline, in treating mild to moderate COVID-19cases among high-risk outpatients [94]. 6,175 patients were administered sotrovimab in Abu Dhabi between30 June and 13 July. Within 14 days, 97 percent of recipients achieved full recovery. There were zero deaths. 1 percent were admitted to ICU.

On July 17, a news report by Weisser described that early in the pandemic in Indonesia, an enterprising philanthropist Haryoseno made ivermectin available to the masses for free or at low cost, which resulted in Indonesia having an extremely low COVID-19 mortality rate. On June 12, 2021, however, in line withthe WHO recommendation, the ministry of health decided to disallow ivermectin and threatened Haryoseno with a fine and a ten-year jail sentence. Subsequently, the supply of ivermectin dried up and mortality increased five-fold [95]. About Australia, the report noted that clinician Mark Hobart had been reported to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) which had decided that there had been no infringement. Subsequently, federal health minister had written that off-label ivermectin prescribing was not regulated or controlled by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) but was at the discretion ofthe prescribing physician. The physicians had formed Covid Medical Network [96], the members of which predominantly followed a ‘triple-therapy protocol’ developed by Thomas Borody, consisting of ivermectin, zinc and doxycycline [97]. The report also said that although the research on ivermectin for COVID-19 had originated from Australia, the researchers had been starved of resources and the discovery ignored.

On July 20, BBC wrote about Indonesia, saying that local media reports had incorrectly stated that theIndonesian authorities had granted ivermectin emergency approval [98]. The reports had been based on a July 15 statement issued by the Food and Drugs Authority of Indonesia (BPOM) in which ivermectin had been listed together with other drugs, two of which had had emergency approval. Shortly afterwards the head of BPOM had told local media that no emergency approval had been given to ivermectin. It had been listed because it was undergoing clinical trials at eight hospitals, the results of which were not expected until October.

On July 20, Med Page Today wrote about retraction of the preprint by Elgazzar et al. [99].

On July 20, a Swedish medical newspaper published an opinion by three Swedish doctors suggesting that Sweden should follow the example of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and other countries which had adopted ivermectin [100].

On July 22, Los Angeles Times wrote that ‘ivermectin, another bogus treatment, becomes a darling ofconspiracy-mongers’ [101]. In addition to reviewing the main points behind the retraction of the Elgazzaret al. preprint the columnist delved into an analysis of ivermectin politics, saying it was rather different from hydroxychloroquine controversy, as ‘the political underpinning of the ivermectin craze involves a conspiracy-infused attack on the pharmaceutical and medical establishment. In this it resembles the antivaccine movement .. . like anti-vaxxers, ivermectin advocates claim that information about the drug is being “suppressed,” generally by agents of Big Pharma; the core idea is that because drug companies can’t make very much money out of a drug available in generic form, they prefer to foist vaccines, on which they canmake billions of dollars in profits, on the innocent public . . . let’s be clear: information about the drug isn’t being “suppressed” for political reasons. It’s being treated as what it is: dangerous misinformation’.

On July 23, an interview of science writer Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal said that science had lost the public’s trust and that the politicization of science had led to a loss of confidence in science as an institution, and whereas the distrust may have been justified it left a vacuum that was often filled by lessrigorous approaches to knowledge [102]. Ridley pointed to a distinction between ‘science as a philosophy’ and‘science as an institution’, with the former wanting to remain open-minded, and the latter wanting to present a unified and authoritative voice, fostering a naive belief in the supremacy of scientists in understanding the world, luring politicians to affiliate themselves with this alleged power. Regardless, scientists often deliberately published things that fit with their political prejudices, ignored things that didn’t, or presented models based on rather extreme assumptions. Pessimistic predictions often being more popular in the media introduced a bias. A third conceptualization of or a type of identification with the concept of science,‘science as a profession’, had become off-puttingly arrogant and political, permeated by motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, with increasing numbers of scientists falling prey to groupthink [103]. According to Ridley, the tendency of scientific establishment ‘to turn into a church, enforcing obedience to the latest dogma and expelling heretics and blasphemers’ had previously been kept in check by the fragmented natureof the scientific enterprise but social media was eliminating the space for heterodoxy, leaving those believingin science as a philosophy increasingly estranged from science as an institution.

On July 23, an article by Mansour et al. described a preclinical tolerance study on the safety of inhaled lyophilized ivermectin formulation indicating 127-fold increase in drug aqueous solubility but also safety issues [104].

On July 24, World Ivermectin Day was organized by the BIRD group, the FLCCC, TrialSite News and 15 other affiliates [105]. Panel discussions included Shabnam Palesa Mohamed in conversation with PinkyN.J. Ngcakani (South Africa) and Wahome Ngare (Kenya); Erin Stair in conversation with Hector Carvallo(Argentina), Lucy Kerr (Brazil) and Flavio Cadegiani (Brazil); Shabnam Palesa Mohamed in conversation with Pierre Kory (US), Ira Bernstein (Canada) and Sabine Hazan (United States); Vincent Rey Vicente(US) in conversation with Iggy Agbayani, Homer Lim and Allan Landrito (Philippines), and PriyamadhabaBahera, Binod Kumar Patro, Biswa Mohan Padhy and Rashmi Ranjan Mohanty (India); Daniel O’Connorin conversation with Juan Bertoglio (Chile) and Matjaˇz Zwitter (Slovenia); Daniel O’Connor in conversationwith Juan Chamie (US), Pierre Kory (US) and Nathi Mdladla (South Africa).

On July 25, a preprint by Ontai et al. described a nationwide implementation of multi-drug COVID-19inpatient and outpatient treatment protocol CATRACHO in Honduras since May 3, 2020 [106,107]. The inpatient protocol consisted of dexamethasone, colchicine, tocilizumab, ivermectin, zinc, azithromycin andheparin. There were two outpatient protocols, one consisting of mouthwash, azithromycin, ivermectin andzinc, and the other consisting of prednisone, colchicine and rivaroxaban. The results indicated a case fatalityrate (CFR) decrease from May 3,2020 baseline of 9.3% to 3.0%, or from June 10, 2020 baseline of 5.0% to3.0%. Mexico used as a control country failed to show a similar decline.

On July 27, upon receiving a Special Benevolence Award from Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew of Malaysia on World Ivermectin Day, Kory of the FLCCC gave a lecture outlining the history of ivermectin in COVID-19 [108,109].

He mentioned that the MATH+ protocol had been adopted as the standard protocol in Ukraine, and thatthe hospital mortality rate there was the lowest of the countries in the area.

On July 27, press releases by Cochrane Deutschland and the University of W¨urzburg stated that there was no evidence of ivermectin’s efficacy [110,111].

On July 27, the university hospital of St. Anny in Brno in the Czech Republic published a report about their ivermectin treatment, saying it had been well tolerated and likely had a positive effect on COVID19 [112]. Ivermectin had been available at hospitals and for outpatient treatment since late 2020. Head of internal cardioangiology clinic Michal Rezek described the results of their analysis of 150 patients with a mean age of 63 years (32-93 years, median 65 years) treated between December 2020 and January 2021 with two doses of 0.2 mg/kg of ivermectin. 117 patients had required oxygenation and corticosteroids, 42 had required high-flow oxygen, and 17 had received also remdesivir. 18 patients had needed mechanical ventilation, six of which had died. Hospital mortality had been 10%, with the average age of the deceased being 75 years. There had been no control group. The hospital intended to continue ivermectin treatment and was preparing a RCT in collaboration with Masaryk University and Czech Clinical Research InfrastructureNetwork (CZECRIN) [113]. Lack of COVID-19 patients was mentioned as a possible obstacle to the trial. Rezek said a combination antiviral therapy with ivermectin and remdesivir was likely more effective than single-agent therapies.

On July 28, a Cochrane review by Popp et al. concluded that its authors were uncertain about the efficacy and safety of ivermectin for treatment or prophylaxis of COVID-19 [114]. With regard to late treatment(inpatients), the authors were uncertain whether ivermectin compared to placebo or standard of care reduced or increased mortality (RR 0.60, 95% CI 0.14-2.51, 2 studies, n=185, very low certainty), mechanical ventilation (RR 0.55, 95% CI 0.11-2.59, 2 studies, 185 participants, very low certainty), need for supplemental oxygen (0 participants required supplemental oxygen, one study, 45 participants, very low certainty), adverse events within 28 days (RR 1.21, 95% CI 0.50-2.97, one study, 152 participants, very low certainty), or viral clearance at day seven (RR 1.82, 95% CI 0.51-6.48, 2 studies, 159 participants, very low certainty). With regard to outpatients, the authors were uncertain about mortality up to 28 days (RR 0.33, 95% CI 0.018.05, 2 studies, 422 participants, very low certainty), mechanical ventilation (RR 2.97, 95% CI 0.12-72.47,one study, 398 participants, very low certainty) and symptoms resolution up to 14 days (RR 1.04, 95% CI0.89-1.21, one study, 398 participants, low certainty). With regard to prophylaxis there was only one eligible study, with mortality up to 28 days being the only outcome eligible for primary analysis; the authors were uncertain whether ivermectin reduced or increased mortality compared to no treatment (zero participants died, one study, 304 participants, very low certainty). The Covid Analysis group criticized the meta-analysis for being ’a very biased meta analysis designed to exclude almost all studies’ [115].

On July 28, an opinion in the Wall Street Journal questioned FDA’s negative stance on ivermectin [116]. The next day the authors wrote that they had not been aware of the retraction of the Elgazzar et al. study, yet stated that ‘the broader point stands: there’s strong evidence of ivermectin’s efficacy in COVID-19’ [117].

On July 28, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Vir Biotechnology announced a joint procurement agreement with European Commission to supply up to 220,000 doses of sotrovimab [118], a contract worth USD 462 million at the wholesale price of USD 2,100 per dose. The agreement enabled participating European Union member states to quickly purchase sotrovimab, following local emergency authorization or authorization at the EUlevel, to treat high-risk patients with COVID-19 who might benefit from early treatment with sotrovimab.

On July 29, an article in Times of India explained a much higher rate of infections in the state of Kerala bylower COVID-19 seropositivity [119].

On July 30, a Czech Republic newspaper published a timeline of ivermectin-related events in the CzechRepublic [120].

On July 30, an article by Rella et al. suggested that in the current conditions the vaccines-only pandemic response may create vaccine-resistant strains [121,122].

On July 31, Kiekens interviewed George Fareed about outpatient treatment protocols for newly infected andfor long haul COVID-19 syndrome (LHCS) patients, implemented jointly with Brian Tyson on thousands of patients in the US [123]. For neurological LHCS symptoms in some instances, Fareed suggested a two to three-day high-dose ivermectin treatment as suggested by Alessandro Santin [124].

August 2021

On August 2, a news article from Israel reported on a clinical trial by Biber et al. (NCT04429711) [125], saying that ivermectin could help reduce the length of infection for less than a USD 1 per day, and that only 13%of ivermectin-treated patients were infectious after six days, compared with 50% of patients in the placebo group [126]. Schwartz, the leader of the trial, said that three journals had rejected the paper: ‘No one even wanted to hear about it. You have to ask how come when the world is suffering’.

On August 2, an open letter by Covid Medical Network stressed the importance of early treatment and noted that the federal health minister had acknowledged and even encouraged off-label prescribing of some treatments including ivermectin [127].

On August 2, an article by Reardon in Nature said that shocking revelations of widespread flaws in the data of a preprint study by Elgazzar et al. dampened ivermectin’s promise and highlighted the challenges of investigating drug efficacy during a pandemic [128]. Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an Australian epidemiologist,said he had lost all faith in the results of ivermectin trials published to date.

On August 2, an article by Sengthong et al. said that repeated ivermectin treatment induced ivermectin resistance in Strongyloides ratti infected rats [129].

On August 3, an article by Santin et al. reviewed the current status of ivermectin research, mentioning that the indicated biological mechanism of ivermectin, competitive binding with SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, was ikely non-epitope specific, possibly yielding full efficacy against emerging viral mutant strains [130].

On August 3, BBC wrote about the mystery of rising infections in India’s Kerala [131]. The southern Indian state of Kerala, with barely 3% of India’s population, accounted for more than half of the country’s new COVID-19 infections. Kerala was testing more than double the people per million compared to the rest of the country. Antibody tests survey revealed that only 43% people above the age of six in Kerala had been exposed to the infection, compared to 68% nationwide. Kerala had fully vaccinated more than 20% of its eligible population and 52% had received a single jab (70% of people over 45 years) which was much higher than the national average. BBC wrote that the state appeared to be testing widely, reporting cases honestly and vaccinating quickly, ensuring that future waves of infection would be less severe. Yet Kerala was said to be at an early stage in runaway exponential growth of cases. More forceful enforcement of rolling lockdowns was suggested as a solution.

On August 3, George Fareed discussed early treatments on Fox News television [132].

On August 5, an article by Behera et al. described a prospective cohort study (n=3,532) in India, indicatingthat two doses of oral ivermectin (0.3 mg/kg/dose given 72 hours apart) as chemoprophylaxis among healthcare workers reduced the risk of COVID-19 infection by 83% in the following month (6% vs 15%, adjustedrelative risk 0.17; 95% CI, 0.12-0.23) [133].

On August 5, a preprint by Rana et al. described an in silico study showing strong binding affinity ofivermectin and doxycycline for SARS-CoV-2 main protease 3CLpro, and increased binding affinity for thecombination of both [134,135].

On August 5, a Finnish technology magazine wrote about ivermectin, saying that according to FLCCC,there was already an effective medication for COVID-19 but it was rarely used [136]. A head of unit at theFinnish Medicines Agency (FIMEA) commented that doctors were allowed to prescribe it off-label, providedthat the patient was informed about it not being officially approved for COVID-19. The official commentedthat ‘in an international comparison the Finnish medical community is quite conservative about adoptingnew treatments without a sufficiently strong evidence base’. Also, a process to officially adopt ivermectin forCOVID-19 could only be initiated by a producer of ivermectin or the European Medicine Agency (EMA).

On August 6, an article by Kow et al. reviewed sample size calculations in ivermectin trials, indicating thatexisting trials had been very underpowered [137].

On August 6, US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Collaboratory published a video interview of EdwardJ. Mills, the head researcher of Together adaptive platform trial [138]. Mills discussed interim results of their outpatient trial which included fluvoxamine and ivermectin (0.4 mg/kg for three days). For ivermectin,the risk reduction for extended emergency room observation or hospitalization was 9% (86/677 vs 95/678,RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.69-1.19) and for mortality 18% (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.44-1.52); these were not statistically significant. Mills commented that ivermectin had had ’no effect whatsoever’ on their primary and secondary endpoints. For fluvoxamine, the risk reduction for extended emergency room observation or hospitalization was 31% (74/742 vs 107/738, RR 0.69, 95% CI 0.52-0.91) and for mortality 29% (17/742 vs 24/738, RR0.71, 95% CI 0.39-1.29); the first endpoint was statistically significant while the second was not. The trial was done at ten locations in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It was unclear whether over-the-counter ivermectin usehad been an exclusion criteria. At the time the gamma variant was prevalent and assumed to cause higher viral loads and a more severe disease than most other variants. The Covid Analysis group criticized various aspects of the trial [139].

On August 6, a report on SARS-CoV-2 variants by Public Health England indicated that concerning deathswithin 28 days of positive specimen date between February 1 and August 2 there had been 71 deaths in people under 50 years and 670 in people over 50 years [140]. In the first group, 18% had been vaccinatedtwice and 68% were unvaccinated. In the second group, 58% had been vaccinated twice and 31% were unvaccinated.

On August 6, a podcast by Nature discussed ivermectin [141].

On August 9, a commentary by US medical doctor using a pseudonym Justus R. Hope described a ‘blackouton any conversation about how ivermectin beat COVID-19 in India’ [142,143]. It claimed that the US newsmedia were trying to confuse the public with false information by saying the deaths in India were ten times greater than official reports. Using August 5 numbers as examples the author said that in ivermectin-using states of India such as Uttar Pradesh with a population 240 million of which 4.9% were fully vaccinated there were 26 daily cases and three deaths, in Delhi with a population of 31 million of which 15% were fully vaccinated there were 61 daily cases and two deaths, in Uttarakhand with a population of 11.4 million of which 15% were fully vaccinated there were 24 daily cases with zero deaths. In states not using ivermectin such as Tamil Nadu with a population of 78.8 million of which 6.9% were fully vaccinated there were 1,997daily cases with 33 deaths. In the US with a population of 331 million of which 50.5% were fully vaccinated there were 127,108 daily cases with 574 deaths. He compared FDA’s and WHO’s ban on ivermectin to Pope’sban on all books and letters that argued the Sun was the center of the universe instead of Earth, adding that the US government was ‘all-in with vaccines with the enthusiasm of a 17th century Catholic church’.

On August 10, a news story by Yahoo! Japan reported that a Japanese clinician Kazuhiro Nagao, appearingon the Fuji TV television program, had suggested that ivermectin should be distributed to all Japanese nationals in advance to be taken after COVID-19 infection, and that COVID-19 should be in the same administrative category as seasonal influenza in order to avoid delays and make early treatment possible [144].

On August 10, a news report from La Pampa province of Argentina described minister of health MarioRub´en Kohan releasing the latest results of the implementation of a monitored intervention program on the use of 0.6 mg/kg of ivermectin for five days in 3,269 treated patients versus 18,149 untreated patients[145,146]. The risk of death was 27.4% lower (RR 0.73) and the risk of death or ICU admission was 38.0%lower (RR 0.62). For people over 40 years of age the risk of death was 33.4% lower (RR 0.67). For people over 40 years of age and with comorbidities the risk of death was 44.0% lower (RR 0.56).

On August 11, Los Angeles Times wrote about ivermectin having ‘no effect whatsoever’ in the Togethertrial [147]. The head researcher Mills said that ‘in our specific trial we do not see the treatment benefit that a lot of the advocates believe should have been seen’. He complained that many researchers had faced unprecedented abuse from advocates of specific treatments.

On August 11, an article by Cobos-Campos et al. reviewed ivermectin for COVID-19 [148].

On August 12, vaccine expert Geert Vanden Bossche, who on May 24, 2021 had proposed mass chemoprophylaxis with ivermectin [149], demanded stopping of COVID-19 mass vaccination [150]. A rationale for the demand was the increased infectiousness of new variants already noted with respect to the alpha and delta variants, both more infective than the original variant, and the delta variant being significantly more infective than the alpha variant. Bossche expected this trajectory to continue, possibly resulting in an uncontrollable situation. In Bossche’s view, the increased infectivity had resulted from a natural selection of increasingly vaccine immunity escaping variants in the vaccinated part of the population. In other words, mass vacci11nation had created an evolutionary pressure for development of these variants which were then transferred to the non-vaccinated population. In addition, vaccine-induced antibodies possibly competed with natural antibody based, variant-nonspecific immunity, possibly rendering the population more vulnerable to some vaccine immunity escaping variants. The issue was also taken up by other researchers [151].

On August 12, a preprint by Elavarasi et al. described a retrospective study about hospitalized patients in India which did not show a statistically significant result [152].

On August 12, an article by Pedroso et al. described that self-prescribed use of early ivermectin treatment by 45 healthcare workers in Brazil was associated with a lower rate of seroconversion in a dose-dependentresponse [153].

On August 13, an article by Zhou et al. suggested that ivermectin might be a new potential anticancer drug therapy for human colorectal cancer and other cancers [154].

On August 13, on NIH Collaboratory, Smith discussed the history of proposed therapies for COVID-19 andthe adaptive platform trial ACTIV-2 [155].

On August 14, a Japanese clinician Kazuhiro Nagao wrote in a blog post that he had been harassed and had received death threats after appearing on TV and telling about treating 500 COVID-19 patients with ivermectin with no deaths [156,157].

On August 14, Kiekens interviewed an Italian physician Andrea Stramezzi about his early treatment protocol and his telehealth treatment method [158]. He was using hydroxychloroquine as a part of the outpatient protocol due to its easy availability. According to Stramezzi, it was useful in the first few days. Initially in the pandemic it had been provisionally recommended [159], then banned [160]. Stramezzi had initiated a legal proceeding about the ban, initially winning the case but subsequently losing an appeal. Regardless,the judge had decreed that physicians were free to prescribe medications off-label at their discretion. In addition, the protocol had included anti-inflammatories such as aspirin, and bromhexine. Also vitamins C and D were used, although Stramezzi did not consider high levels of vitamin D sufficient to prevent COVID19. Additionally, vitamin K was administered separately from vitamin D due to their antagonism. A later addition, ivermectin, useful also in later stages to reduce replication of the virus, needed to be imported from the neighboring countries. Stramezzi said that about 10% of Italians had a genetic vulnerability toSARS-CoV-2 induced hyperinflammation. For this group, prevention with corticosteroids and enoxaparin was necessary. He said that there were approximately 1,500 physicians in Italy working with the similar protocols, exchanging information with each other. The public’s awareness of early treatments in Italy was still low because health authorities did not recommend it or talk about it, instead just recommendingparacetamol and waiting for severe pneumonia to emerge before contacting healthcare facilities. Stramezzisaid they had met Sileri, a physician/researcher and deputy minister of health (M5s) [161,162], for an hour.

Sileri had said he was aware of the therapeutical options, had treated a hundred patients himself, and hadco-authored an article about the genetic defect [163]. Also, the parliament of Italy had voted in favor ofearly treatments [164]. Regardless, after several months nothing had happened with regard to adoption of these treatments. Stramezzi was developing a free mobile phone app for doctors who had too many patients or who were unsure of how to treat COVID-19: the app would give suggestions for a suitable treatment protocol.

On August 16, a letter to the editor by Chahla et al. in the American Journal of Therapeutics described a randomized controlled trial (n=234) in Argentina with ivermectin and iota-carrageenan as pre-exposureprophylaxis for health care workers (NCT04701710) [165,166,167]. The treated group (n=117) received 6mg ivermectin every seven days, and six nasal sprays of iota-carrageenan per day for 4 weeks. The risk ofCOVID-19 infection was 84.0% lower (3.4% vs 21.4%, RR 0.16, p=0.001), and the risk of moderate or severe disease was 95.2% lower (0.0% vs 8.5%, RR 0.05, p=0.002). The authors hypothesized that the combination treatment formed a double viral barrier: first, carrageenan behaved as a mucolytic agent in a barrier of sulfated polysaccharides with negative charge in the nasal cavity; second, ivermectin decreased viral load by systemic cellular action.

On August 16, an article by Winter examined the ongoing discussion about ivermectin [168].

On August 17, an article by Gonz´alez-Paz et al. described an in-silico elastic network model analysis of ivermectin components (avermectin-B1a and avermectin-B1b) providing a biophysical and computational perspective of proposed multi-target activity of ivermectin for COVID-19 [169,170].

On August 17, Associated Press reported that ’dozens of people in Oregon have contacted the state’s poisoncenter after self-medicating against COVID-19 with a drug used to treat parasites, with five becoming hospitalized and two of them winding up in intensive care units’ [171].

On August 18, Los Angeles Times wrote that fluvoxamine may actually work against COVID-19 [172].

On August 19, an article by Gonz´alez-Paz et al. described an in silico analysis of the components of ivermectin (avermectin-B1a and avermectin-B1b), suggesting different and complementary inhibitory activity of each component, with an affinity of avermectin-B1b for viral structures, and of avermectin-B1a for host structures [173,174].

On August 20, an article by Amaya-Aponte reviewed ivermectin in COVID-19 [175].

On August 20, the investigational monoclonal antibody sotrovimab was granted a provisional approval forthe treatment of COVID-19 in Australia [176].

On August 20, a letter by Popp et al. in the BMJ said that the different assessments between Popp et al’sCochrane meta-analysis and the one by Bryant et al. were partly due to baseline data of included studies:Bryant et al. pooled heterogeneous patient populations, interventions, comparators and outcomes whereasPopp et al. did not; thus, according to Popp et al., Bryant et al. compared apples and oranges, ‘serving a large bowl of a colorful fruit salad’ [177]. The authors accused Bryant et al. of ‘creating pseudotrustworthiness for substances that cannot be considered effective and safe treatment options nor game changers, at this stage’.

On August 21, an article by Karvanen et al. described a new algorithm for causal effect identification: do search based on do-calculus [178]. The algorithm might allow for improving clinical trial result analysis [179,180,181].

On August 21, due to overlap and confusion with the I-MATH+ prophylaxis and early outpatient treatment protocol, the FLCCC discontinued its I-MASS mass prophylaxis and home treatment protocol introduced a few months earlier [182].

On August 21, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tweeted about ivermectin, stating that ‘You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.’ [183]. The tweet linked to FDA’s March 2021advisory against ivermectin [184].

On August 21, a Slovenian newspaper reviewed ivermectin, mentioning two previous articles published in the same newspaper written by a Slovenian ivermectin proponent Matjaˇz Zwitter [185,186].

On August 21, a blog post by Meyerowitz-Katz discussed a study by Cadegiani et al. [69], claiming that thedata in a spreadsheet uploaded by the authors didn’t look real: ’data for this study may not be fake, but it is at least incredibly suspicious’ [187,188].

On August 21, a preprint by Izcovich et al. presented a systematic review about bias as a source of inconsistency in ivermectin trials [189]. Based on a review of 29 RCTs with 5,592 cases the authors concluded that previous reports about ivermectin’s benefits were based on potentially biased results, and further research was needed.

On August 22, an Indian geriatrician, preventive cardiologist and anti-aging specialist Lenny Da Costa described ivermectin use in India [190,191]. According to Costa, beginning from March 2020, India distributed an outpatient home treatment kit containing hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, doxycycline, ivermectin and vitamin C. In March 2021, ignoring evidence from India, WHO stated that ivermectin should not be used.

The statement was given by an Indian epidemiologist, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan. A group of Indian physicians filed a legal case against her. To protect Swaminathan, Indian central government removedivermectin from official recommendations. However, state governments were responsible for guidelines for medical care in the states, not the central government; most states continued the use of ivermectin. Costasaid that no-one had stopped using ivermectin but they did not advertise the fact. According to Costa,during the deadly second wave in April-May 2021, India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, reduced the number of daily cases from 60,000 to 15,000 in a month by distributing ivermectin for everyone for free. Clinicians did not wait for RT-PCR test results; instead, medication was started immediately on the presentation of symptoms. Prescriptions were given for free by telemedicine (WhatsApp). Ivermectin prevented people from infecting others, especially family members. Also, numerous physicians had been using ivermectin since March 2020 for prophylaxis, with none of them getting infected. On June 29, 2021, the government of Uttar Pradesh announced a home treatment kit for children, containing paracetamol, multivitamins and ivermectin. Costa claimed that India’s success in controlling the second wave was primarily due to an early administration of ivermectin, doxycycline, zinc and other medications used for early treatment.

On August 23, a medical doctor writing under a pseudonym Justus R. Hope continued on India’s ‘ivermectin blackout’ [192,193]. On August 15, Kerala, a state reportedly not using ivermectin, with a population of approximately 3% of India’s population, had accounted for 56% of India’s new cases and 25% of India’s new deaths. Delhi, a state with nearly the same population size as Kerala but using ivermectin, accounted for 0.2% of new cases and 0% of deaths. Uttar Pradesh, with a population almost eight times larger than

Kerala, accounted for 0.09% of new cases and 0.2% of deaths. Hope wrote that Kerala ranked in the top five most vaccinated of India’s 29 states, adding that Kerala’s failure in comparison to most other states of India could be explained by the facts that Kerala had not used ivermectin for early treatment whereas most other states had, and that ivermectin lowered the viral load and inhibited transmission whereas vaccination did not, giving a false sense of security. Those with prior infection, negative test result, or at least one vaccine dose (56% of adults) had been exempted from lockdown [194]. Hope called Kerala’s comparatively highvaccination rate its most problematic feature leading to rampant viral transmission. Kerala had adopted ivermectin in April but restricted its use to severe cases with additional risk factors. On August 5, Kerala had removed ivermectin from state guidelines completely. In contrast, Uttar Pradesh had been the first stateto introduce large-scale prophylactic and therapeutic use of ivermectin. The state had treated all contacts of an infected patient prophylactically with ivermectin. The lesson, Hope said, was that ivermectin could make up for the low use of vaccination but vaccination could not make up for the low use of ivermectin.

On August 23, ABC News report written by a medical toxicology fellow and an emergency medicine physician in New York stated that health officials had said that a potentially dangerous, unproven deworming drugs hould not be used to treat COVID-19 [195]. The report blamed social media for informing people about the medication ‘not authorized by independent regulators at the FDA’ (see e.g. [196]). Not a single trial to prove ivermectin’s usefulness existed and an interviewee advised that people ‘don’t have to go with something that doesn’t have a scientific basis’.

On August 23, CBS News reported that officials had warned against using anti-parasite drug for COVID19 [197].

On August 24, Mother Jones magazine interviewed Boulware, an ivermectin researcher, involved in a University of Minnesota trial (NCT04510194) [198,199]. Boulware had received hostile messages calling him ’are embodied Josef Mengele’ from people believing that ivermectin was a miracle cure and placebo-controlled trials were therefore unethical. Another researcher at Washington University in St. Louis commented on the polarization, saying that if she tweeted something about vaccines as positive, she was being attacked by people pro early treatment, and if she tweeted about potential treatments, she provoked the ire of vaccine advocates who ‘kind of seem to suppress any information about early treatment, maybe because they feel like it’s going to make people think they don’t need to be vaccinated’. The article also described Steve Kirsch’s frustration with the government’s unwillingness to recommend treatments on the basis of small trials with encouraging results. Researchers also worried that the recent reports of ivermectin self-dosing could scare people off of enrolling in any kind of treatment trials in the future.

On August 25, an article by Mohan et al. described a trial (RIVET-COV, n=157) investigating the effect of single-dose oral ivermectin (12 or 24 mg) in mild and moderate COVID-19 which indicated no statistically significant effects on viral load or RT-PCR negativity [200].

On August 25, on the social media platform Reddit, subreddit r/ivermectin which had been a public, uncensored discussion forum initiated a year before for discussions related to ivermectin research and treatments,was flooded with tens of horse-themed pornographic cartoon images, in reference to ivermectin as ‘horse paste’, as well as hundreds of sexual, offensive or irrelevant comments. The moderator said the attack had been coordinated by a group of moderators of other, large subreddits, yet refused to remove the irrelevant content, referring to his disbelief in censorship [201].

On August 25, in a FLCCC weekly update, endocrinologist and researcher Fl´avio Cadegiani described his experience in the state of Amazonas in Brazil during a gamma variant outbreak in 2021 (the gamma variantwas considered to cause a more severe disease than the delta variant) [202]. The research group had visitedvarious cities with hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. However, in the city of Coari located afew hundred kilometers west from Manaus there had been no hospitalized COVID-19 patients at all. At first Cadegiani had been unable to get an explanation to the situation but later, in private, a health official had revealed that the city had been providing ivermectin for its whole population for two months already. As to the question why the explanation had not been given immediately the official replied that she had been afraid of being accused of giving unapproved treatments. Cadegiani said the experience had been shocking.

He added that secondary endpoints in single-agent trials were important indicators of possible efficacy as a component in a multi-agent treatment protocol.

On August 25, in the FLCCC weekly update, Kory and Marik discussed the addition of dual anti-androgentherapy (dutasteride 2 mg on day one followed by 1 mg daily for ten days [203], and spironolactone 100 mg twice daily for ten days [204]) to their delta variant early treatment protocol which at the time included twelve components [202]. They stated the addition provided ‘massive improvements’.

On August 26, Krolewiecki et al. published additional details about their trial on the antiviral effect of high-dose ivermectin in COVID-19 [205].

On August 26, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that ivermectin prescriptionsfrom US pharmacies had increased 24-fold from the pre-pandemic baseline [206]. Ivermectin-related calls to poison control centers had increased five-fold, respectively. The report gave two examples of adverse effects:one patient becoming disoriented after taking tablets of unknown strength (5 tablets per day for five days),and another patient presenting with confusion, drowsiness, visual hallucinations, tachypnea and tremors after drinking an injectable form of veterinary ivermectin.

On August 26, Newsweek interviewed Joe Varon of the FLCCC saying that since a year ago he had treated thousands of COVID-19 patients in the US with off-label ivermectin in combination with other pharmaceuticals in the FLCCC treatment protocols [207]. During the pandemic Varon had been widely featured in the US media but the reporters had chosen to not mention ivermectin.

On August 26, a news story in Vice magazine complained that Facebook did not properly censor ivermectin content and Facebook’s ivermectin groups were ‘unhinged and out of control’ [208,209].

On August 28, Newsweek reported about a far-right political commentator’s use of ivermectin for his COVID19 infection [210].

On August 28, Newsweek reported that a Republican representative from Texas had appeared to speak in support of unproven treatments for COVID-19, including ivermectin, a drug often used as a dewormer for cows and horses [211]. The representative was also said to have praised president Trump and have raised concerns about vaccines.

On August 29, Anthony Fauci warned against using ivermectin for COVID-19 [212].

On August 29, Cohen wrote in Forbes that ivermectin had become embedded in a ‘cultural war’, commenting that ‘of all drugs right-wingers would have gravitated to, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are most unusual candidates, in that they’re largely used in humans in developing nations for conditions rarely seen in the US’ [213]. Ivermectin for COVID-19 was pictured as unproven misinformation harming public health, and the politicization of the issue had been to the detriment of efforts to contain the pandemic, taking attention away from clinically confirmed instruments such as vaccines. The author worried that there were a surprising number of people in the medical profession who believed in ivermectin, such as the physician advisor to Florida’s governor. Cohen said that ‘these contrarians are not waiting for the completion of confirmatory studies to disseminate their advice to the gullible minions to take ivermectin off-label, even if doing so may endanger lives’.

On August 30, Newsweek reported that an US hospital had refused to administer FLCCC member FredWagshul’s prescription for a patient, after which a judge had ordered the hospital to administer it [214]. The next day, a regional US newspaper interviewed Wagshul who attributed the lack of adoption of ivermectinto ‘propaganda, money and big pharma’ [215].

On August 30, a report by German news agency said that ivermectin trials have been of a low quality and that Cochrane Deutschland and the University of W¨urzburg considered ivermectin inefficacious [216].

On August 30, a video interview of Fernando Valerio describes Honduras’ treatment protocols in detail [217].

On August 31, a preprint by Omrani et al. presented a systematic review and meta-analysis of effectiveness of ivermectin/doxycycline combination, concluding that based on low-quality evidence, the combination was accompanied with a shorter time of clinical recovery but did not significantly reduce all-cause mortality, viral clearance, and hospital stay [218].

On August 31, Pfeiffer described patients’ experiences in US hospitals [219].

On August 31, Kory of the FLCCC accused the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) of being the main agent in the ‘war against ivermectin’ due to not having given a recommendation for ivermectin [220]. Healso stated the FDA was only ‘running interference for [NIH] by telling jokes and lies’.

On August 31, a Swedish newspaper G¨oteborgs-Posten wrote about veterinary ivermectin use in the US [221].

On August 31, a preprint describing a randomized controlled trial of community-level surgical mask promotion in rural Bangladesh with 111,525 individuals in the intervention arm and 155,268 individuals in the control arm indicated 14% relative reduction in COVID-19-like symptoms, with absolute reductions of 7.5%vs 8.6%. Divided by age groups, differences were not statistically significant in people under 50. In people between 50-60 years there was a reduction of 23%, and in people over 60 a reduction of 35%, respectively.

The impact of the intervention faded after five months [222].

September 2021

On September 1, ABC News wrote that due to lack of evidence and increase in reports related to ivermectin toxicity, the American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists had called for an ‘immediate end’ to prescribing, dispensing or using the deworming drug ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19 [223].

On September 1, Washington Post wrote that people using ivermectin for prophylaxis had been shocked about having ended up being hospitalized for COVID-19 [224]. The story mentioned the rise in prescriptions and FDA’s tweet and warned about overdoses. Numerous interviewees advised against ivermectin, with the most critical comparing it to ‘snake oil’. Overall, a part of the population preferring ivermectin and vitamin cocktails over vaccines was seen to indicate ‘a broader problem: a public health crisis made worse by many people’s distrust of medical authorities while they rely on often faulty information from some ofthe country’s most influential people, which is amplified through social media’. Ivermectin was said to have gained particular traction in conservative circles. Wagshul of the FLCCC was quoted saying that ivermectin was more effective than vaccines against variants given waning immunity. A researcher working on an ongoingclinical trial on ivermectin in the US ([225,226]) commented that ‘there’s either people that believe it totally is a cure-all and works or that it is highly dangerous . . . and the reality is, neither extreme is true’.

On September 1, a letter by Keehner et al. in the New England Journal of Medicine reported about a dramatic decline in vaccine effectiveness from June to July in a highly vaccinated health system workforce in California, likely due to the emergence of the delta variant, waning of immunity over time, and the end of masking requirements in California [227].

On September 1, KFOR News published a news story in which a rural Oklahoma doctor, Jason McElyea,claimed that local emergency rooms were so backed up with patients having overdosed ivermectin that gunshot victims had hard time getting to the facilities [228]. In addition, ivermectin overdose patients were completely clogging ambulance services: McElyea was quoted saying that ‘all of their ambulances are stuck at the hospital waiting for a bed to open so they can take the patient in and they don’t have any, that’s it. . . if there’s no ambulance to take the call, there’s no ambulance to come to the call’.

On September 1, 2021 the subreddit r/ivermectin was ‘quarantined’ by the Reddit platform but that did notstop the flood of offensive posts. Alternative forums were created but they seemed to fail to capture largeaudiences (e.g. [229]). Another subreddit, r/IVMScience appeared to have stalled after August 23, 2021,with the moderator’s account deleted.

On September 1, podcaster Joe Rogan, with 11.1 million followers on YouTube, 13.2 million followers on Instagram and a USD 100 million contract to publish his podcast exclusively on Spotify, revealed on Instagram that he had got COVID-19 and had been treated with monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, azithromycin, prednisone, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide drip and a vitamin drip for three days in a row [230]. Rogan’s statement was widely taken up by news media [231,232,233]. On July 1, 2021, in the context of an unrelated controversy, a journalist at the New York Times had called Rogan ‘too big to cancel . . . one of the most consumed media products on the planet – with the power to shape tastes, politics, medical decisions’ [234].

On September 1, a letter to the editor by Bryant et al. commented on the recent report in the Guardian [81]discussing the effect of the removal of the Elgazzar et al. trial on the meta-analysis by Bryant at al. [4].

The authors stated that ‘while quantitative measures of effect do of course change on removal of any study,the overall findings of a significant mortality advantage in ivermectin treatment, and in prophylaxis, remain robust to removal of the disputed data. The claim that conclusions are “entirely reversed” cannot be sustained on the evidence’ [235].

On September 1, Due˜nas-Gonz´alez et al. discussed repurposing of ivermectin as a novel anticancer [236].

On September 2, Newsweek published a version of McElyea’s story, saying people taking the horse de-wormer medication were filling up the area’s emergency rooms [237]. The report mentioned FDA’s ‘stern warnings’against ivermectin, the unavailability of ambulances, and gunshot victims’ difficulties.

On September 2, Rolling Stone wrote about how Joe Rogan ‘became a cheerleader for ivermectin . . . no one has been more successful at promoting ivermectin than Rogan’ [238].

On September 2, a major Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat republished a news article written by Finnish News Agency (STT) about an US podcast host Joe Rogan treating his COVID-19 infection with a ‘dewormer intended for horses’ warned against by ‘medical officials’ [239]. The article described that after his diagnosis Rogan begun taking ‘all kinds of potions’ including ivermectin, which, according to Washington Post and the Guardian, was used as a dewormer for horses. However, ‘some representatives of conservative media’had ‘advertised the controversial dewormer’. In addition to mentioning the negative stance of the European

Medicine Agency (EMA), the article also cited FDA’s tweet saying: ‘You are not a horse. You are not a cow.

Seriously, y’all. Stop it’. According to the article, calls about ivermectin exposure to poison control centers in the US jumped to five times over normal levels in July 2021. Rogan was also described having spread ‘lies’about COVID-19 and being against vaccines. The leading infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci was said to have criticized Rogan’s earlier statements. Up to the 1990s, STT, founded in 1887, was often consideredt he ‘official’ national news source. Helsingin Sanomat, the most widely distributed newspaper in Finland,essentially holds a monopoly in the metropolitan area. The article was also republished by the most widely distributed yellow press media Ilta-Sanomat belonging to the same concern as Helsingin Sanomat [240]. In addition, the story was posted in some regional newspapers [241], essentially reaching the whole population of the country.

On September 2, a competing Finnish yellow press newspaper wrote about Rogan’s use of dewormer, saying that it had no proven efficacy and it could be dangerous, even deadly [242]. Rogan was said to regularly ‘flirt with misinformation’. The article also described FDA warnings and retraction of the Elgazzar et al. trial.

On September 2, citing insufficient evidence of efficacy, leading health experts in Sri Lanka urged people to stop using ivermectin for COVID-19; however, a local trial was ongoing [243].

On September 2, Marik and Kory published a reanalysis of the data of their earlier meta-analysis [6],saying that the summary point estimates were largely unaffected when the study by Elgazzar et al. was removed [244].

On September 2, a letter to the editor by Neil et al. said that their Bayesian analysis provided sufficientconfidence that ivermectin was an effective treatment for COVID-19, also after the exclusion of Elgazzar et al. study [245].

On September 2, a Cochrane review concluded that the authors were uncertain whether the investigational monoclonal antibody sotrovimab had an effect on mortality (RR 0.33, 95% CI 0.01-8.18) and invasive mechanical ventilation requirement or death (RR 0.14, 95% CI 0.01-2.76). Treatment with sotrovimab was said to possibly reduce the need for oxygenation (RR 0.11, 95 % CI 0.02-0.45), hospital admission or death by day 30 (RR 0.14, 95% CI 0.04-0.48) [246].

On September 2, an article by Alves et al. in the BMJ about poorly designed studies contributing to misinformation in Brazil said that ’much like a poorly written sequel to a blockbuster, the ivermectin narrative appears to be a subsidiary of the rationale that gave the world the HCQ pseudo-solution to COVID-19: cheap, readily available answer to the biggest sanitary crisis of our time’ [247]. The authors argued that public communication of science (i.e. news reporting) should be evidence based: any interaction between scientists and press should aim at summarizing and contextualizing the most important findings of an article for the general public, preserving context and limitations of the research, promoting transparency,integrity and scientific literacy. Also, research findings should be published without delay and include full datasets. Otherwise, the authors said, public communication may be only fueling polarization and an eventual implementation of harmful, inefficient or wasteful public health policies.

On September 2, an article by Chaudhry et al. presented a systematic review about the role of ivermectin in hospitalized patients [248].

On September 2, a report in BuzzFeed news questioned the validity of two prophylaxis trials by Carvallo etal. in Argentina [249]. The report claimed that the reported numbers, genders and ages of trial participants had slight inconsistencies. Carvallo was said to have declined to share the raw data even to his coauthors, the timeline and ethical approvals of the trials were unclear, as well as who had performed the statistical analyses.

It was also unclear which hospitals had been involved and in which ways. Carvallo denied accusations of fraud.

On September 3, an article by Okogbenin et al. described a retrospective study in Nigeria, with 300 patients treated with ivermectin, zinc, vitamin C and azithromycin, reporting zero mortality [250].

On September 3, a rapid response by Bryant et al. to Popp et al. [177] stated that their Bryant et al. metaanalysis was a non-commissioned research paper that strictly followed PRISMA systematic review guidelines,and that Popp et al. itself contained several misleading items, including using death instead of infection for the prophylaxis outcome, specifying outcome measures not found in the included trials but ignoring the outcome measures found in the trials, subsequently stating that they found ‘no data’ [251]. The authors concluded that in a pandemic context, the benefits of ivermectin almost certainly outweighed any risks.

On September 3, a blog post by Meyerowitz-Katz discussed the study by Carvallo et al. [252], pointing outissues that indicated possible fraud, yet noted that the study was not a randomized controlled trial and thus

not included in most meta-analyses or given the same credence, and it did not change recommendations forofficial medical organizations. However, Meyerowitz-Katz added, ’it perhaps had an even bigger impact onpeople actually taking ivermectin than previously fraudulent research. This paper showed a 100% benefit,it was enormously popular on social media, and it was given a huge amount of credence by promoters ofivermectin for nearly a year. It is not a stretch to say that this one study has perhaps caused hundreds ofthousands or even millions of people to take ivermectin as a prophylactic drug to prevent COVID-19’ [253].

On September 3, South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) repeated its warnings against the use of ivermectin, saying its stance was aligned to that of US FDA [254].

On September 3, Yahoo News published a version of McElyea’s story, mentioning that he was an emergency room physician affiliated with multiple hospitals in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and that the situation was so dire that even people with gunshot wounds have to wait their turn to get treatment [255]. McElyea added that people were suffering real ramifications from taking a dosage meant for a full-sized horse, including ‘scary’instances of vision loss, nausea, and vomiting.

On September 3, Rolling Stone magazine published a version of McElyea’s story [256].

On September 4, the Guardian published a version of McElyea’s story [257].

On September 4, BBC published a version of McElyea’s story [258].

On September 4, the administration of Northeastern Health Systems (NHS) Sequoyah posted a statement saying that although McElyea was not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he was affiliated with a medical staffing group that provided coverage for the emergency room at Sallisaw but he had not worked there in over two months [259,260]. The administration clarified that NHS Sequoyah had not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin, including not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose. They added that all patients who had visited the emergency room had received medical attention as appropriate,and the hospital had not needed to turn away any patients seeking emergency care.

On September 4, KXMX interviewed a hospital administrator of NHS Sequoyah who stated that the hospital being overloaded by ivermectin patients was ‘simply not the case in Sallisaw .. . we have not seen or had anypatients in our ER or hospital with ivermectin overdose . . . we have not had any patients with complaints or issues related to ivermectin . . . we are not overrun with patients with ivermectin related issues’ [261].

The administrator added that McElyea had treated patients in the Sallisaw emergency room but not in the past several months, and added that she wanted the public to know that McElyea did not speak for NHSSequoyah.

On September 4, NPR wrote that poison control centers are fielding a surge of ivermectin overdose calls [262,263].

On September 4, Reuters published a fact-check article saying that ‘outrage has spread online that Afghan refugees entering the United States will receive the drug ivermectin although it does not have U.S. approval as a COVID-19 treatment. However, the posts miss the vital context that refugees are given ivermectin for infections unrelated to the novel coronavirus . . . ivermectin is administered as a presumptive treatment forintestinal parasite’ [264]. The ‘outrage’ was said to have been caused by ivermectin being administered to refugees but being largely unavailable for US citizens willing to use it for COVID-19.

On September 4, an article by Associated Press published in Indian Express said that efforts to stamp out use of parasite drug ivermectin for COVID-19 in US were growing [265]. It said that ivermectin was being‘promoted by Republican lawmakers, conservative talk show hosts and some doctors, amplified via social media to millions of Americans who remain resistant to getting vaccinated’, with the American Medical Association, two US pharmacist groups, FDA, CDC and WHO advising against it.

On September 5, the Guardian added an amendment to the end of their article, quoting parts of the statementby NHS Sequoyah, saying that the hospital had not treated any patients related to taking ivermectin,including overdose [266].

On September 5, a ‘fact check’ by Shore News Network called the McElyea story ‘completely false’, mentioning that the publishers had not issued retractions, saying that ‘the left continues to push a media narrativethat conservatives and Republicans are creating an ivermectin health crisis’ [267].

On September 6, a preprint by Buonfrate et al. described randomized controlled trial in Italy with results indicating statistically insignificant dose dependent viral load reduction (NCT04438850) [268]. The authors said that ivermectin remained safe with dosing regimes of 0.6 mg/kg and 1.2 mg/kg for five days. The study was terminated early due to lack of eligible patients.

On September 6, a blog post by an US doctor working on new models for mental health care called theMcElyea story ‘too good to check’, saying that ’the media has tried to spread the word that the scientific consensus [about ivermectin for COVID-19] remains skeptical. In the process, they may have gone a littleoverboard and portrayed it as the world’s deadliest toxin that will definitely kill you and it will all somehow be Donald Trump’s fault’ [269,270].

On September 6, a report by News On 6 said ‘a false report has Oklahoma trending nationally . . . the doctor at the center of the story told News 9 he was misquoted, and the story was wrong’. McElyea clarifiedthat ‘as the story ran, it sounded like all of Oklahoma hospitals were filled with people who have overdosed on ivermectin and that’s not the case, . . . the cases we are seeing, people who are overdosing on ivermectin,they are taking full strength cattle doses and coming in and that is something that could be avoided’.

The report mentioned another hospital in the area, Integris Grove, having stated that they had seen ‘a handful of ivermectin patients in their emergency rooms . . . while our hospitals are not filled with people who have taken ivermectin, such patients are adding to the congestion already caused by COVID-19 and other emergencies’. The report concluded with a mention that the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information had received 12 ivermectin-related calls last month [271].

On September 6, Soave analyzed the media reporting, saying that the media fell for a viral hoax about ivermectin overdoses straining rural hospitals [272]. He commented that McElyea clearly stated that ivermectin overdoses were a problem and claimed that some hospitals were dealing with strain in general but he neveractually connected these two issues. Instead, the KFOR’s journalist had added that framing; she had notresponded to a request for comment. If other media outlets had called the doctor or the hospitals they would have easily uncovered the error. Soave added that while the mainstream media had vigorously condemned COVID-19 misinformation in social media, readers could also encounter it in mainstream media such as Rolling Stone, New York Times or Associated Press (AP) which had recently reported that 70 percent of calls to Mississippi’s poison hotline were from people who had taken ivermectin while the actual figure was 2 percent [273] (AP was a member of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) [274]).

On September 6, another judge reversed the earlier decision concerning administration of ivermectin prescribed by Wagshul to a patient in a US hospital, saying there ‘was no doubt that the medical and scientific communities do not support the use of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19’ [275]. The judge addedt hat ‘COVID-19 has ravaged the world. However, the rule of law must be followed once the court system is involved. The law in its purest form shall have neither hatred nor sympathy to anyone or anything. It shall stand unwavering in its truth, justice, and fairness to call’ [276]. A spokesperson for the hospital described the ruling as ‘positive in regards to the respect for science and the expertise of medical professionals’, adding that they implore the community ‘to do what we know works: wear a mask, become fully vaccinated and use social distancing whenever possible’. She added that the hospital appreciated scientific rigor and did not believe they should be ordered to administer medications ’against medical advice’.

On September 6, a German magazine for pharmacists reported about American Pharmacists Association’s recent demand to stop off-label ivermectin prescribing [277]. The article mentioned the ongoing PRINCIPLEtrial by University of Oxford.

On September 7, Fox News reported that McElyea was an employee of an agency that staffs emergencydepartments [278]. The report also mentioned that while NHS Sequoyah had stated they had not treatedany ivermectin patients, Integris Grove Hospital, had seen a handful’. Integris added that ‘there is a lotof media attention surrounding remarks reportedly made by Dr. McElyea. While we do not speak on hisbehalf, he has publicly said his comments were misconstrued and taken out of context’.

On September 7, a CNN reporter Daniel Dale tweeted about McElyea case, saying local media had misrepresented the interview of McElyea, national and international media had failed to do due diligence, and readers and critics had jumped to conclusions. He concluded that ‘lots of people involved here – certainly the local outlet/the big aggregating outlets/the prominent tweeters on the left, but also some critics on the right – could’ve done a better job pursuing facts/waiting for facts before coming to conclusions’ [279]. CNN published a ‘fact-check’ report with similar content [280].

On September 7, an Austrian newspaper wrote that the misconception that horse dewormer ivermectin wouldhelp against COVID-19 is widespread internationally and also in Austria [281]. The article mentioned thatno poisonings had been reported in Austria, and that Czech Republic had adopted ivermectin in hospitals.

A toxicologist commented that ivermectin was still dangerous and there was insufficient data on the safety of chronic consumption.

On September 7, the title of a January 2021 article in a German women’s magazine, originally asking whether ivermectin might be useful, was updated to ‘People are not horses’ [282].

On September 7, a Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet wrote that instead of being vaccinated Americans are taking ivermectin as the latest alternative treatment for COVID-19, the only problem being that it was intended for treating parasites in horses and cows [283].

On September 7, Joe Rogan complained that CNN had reported that he had been taking ‘horse dewormer’;Rogan stated that ‘I literally got it from a doctor’ [284].

On September 7, wealthy Chinese exile Guo Wengui was said to be using his online misinformation network to promote the use of unproven treatments for COVID-19 [285].

On September 8, an article by Cruciani et al. presented a systematic review and meta-analysis of ivermectin for prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19 [286]. Based on an analysis of eleven RCTs, the authors concluded that there was limited evidence for the benefit of ivermectin.

On September 8, a letter published in the Guardian by Hill, the main author of one of the meta-analyses about ivermectin [5], said that after his team had questioned the clinical benefits of ivermectin the team and his family had received daily death threats. As social media platforms had not reacted he had stopped using social media but abuse by email had continued. Hill described the situation as shocking, affecting many scientists, and said that scientists must be protected from anti-vaxxer abuse, possibly by police action [287].

On September 8, Wired magazine wrote about Together trial results, quoting the head researcher saying that ivermectin proponents had ignored their fluvoxamine findings, only being interested in ivermectin,‘feeling strongly’ about it but not about other possible options [288]. The article also mentioned US NIH’s ongoing ACTIV-6 ivermectin trial, into which people could sign up at home. A co-chair of the trial’s steering committee said that there was no data on ivermectin’s benefit but since people were using it, the point of their trial was to get a definitive answer.

On September 8, the Guardian worried about some Australian clinics’ off-label prescribing of ‘unapproved’ivermectin [289]. The president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) said that while RACGP did not consider its role to be looking over the shoulders of every GP, the advice from the health experts to not use ivermectin was ‘100% clear’. However, she added, ‘the status of other drugs, suchas sotrovimab, is very different. That is an example of a new drug for the treatment of Covid-19 that haspassed through the rigorous testing safety procedures of the Therapeutic Goods Administration’.

On September 9, Geert Vanden Bossche summarized the negative effects of mass vaccination as follows: itwill, first, eventually drive dominant propagation of super variants that are highly infectious and increasinglyresist vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies; second, erode innate immune defense in the non-vaccinated(due to high infectious pressure exerted by enhanced circulation of more infectious variants); and third,erode naturally acquired immunity (due to increasing viral resistance to neutralizing spike protein specificantibodies). Of these, the second and third consequences together prevent herd immunity from being established.

Yet the solution, according to Bossche, would be induction of herd immunity by starting from scratch against the more infectious variants. This could be achieved by providing multidrug early treatment for the infected which would result in enhanced rates of recovery from disease and rise in the number of people who develop life-long protective immunity. Also, mass antiviral treatment with any drug that would effectively reduce viral infectious pressure would be required to prevent innate antibodies in previously asymptotically infected individuals from being suppressed by short-lived, spike protein specific antibodies and thus enable the healthy, unvaccinated part of the population to deal with all SARS-CoV-2 variants; these massantiviral campaigns might need to include pets and live-stock and be combined with lockdown rules foras long as titers of these short-lived antibodies were measurable (6-8 weeks).

Boscche said that a larger unvaccinated population would circulate also less infectious variants, attenuating circulation of more infectious variants. However, the above methods would still be unlikely to sufficiently reduce transmission among healthy individuals; therefore ultimately an immune intervention able to prevent infection in all susceptible age groups would be required, and as long as such an intervention, likely based on natural killer cell based vaccines, would not be available, repeated antiviral chemoprophylaxis might be necessary. However, as along term strategy the chemoprophylaxis would not be feasible, as overuse could promote viral resistance to the compound.

About his personal intentions Bossche wrote that ‘one can always do more, write morearticles, bring more scientific evidence to the table, do more interviews and podcasts, reply to more questionsand destroy more of the nonsense divulgated by scientifically incompetent experts or illiterate fact-checkers.

However, I’ve decided to not continue along this path as I knew from the very start that this big alliance of stakeholders would not listen and as the primary purpose of my endeavors has always been to share, as broadly as possible, my scientific insights on why this [mass vaccination] experiment is an incredible blunder, so that none the involved experts, key opinion leaders, public health authorities or peers from industry could ever pretend that this was unknown and simply unpredictable’ [290].

He said that he had a history of going against ‘groupthink’, for example speaking against the results of Gavi The Vaccine Alliance’s phase III Ebola vaccine trials conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and published in a peer-reviewed journal. Bossche said the results falsely concluded that the vaccine had 100% efficacy, whereas according to Bossche’s analysis ‘the truth looked extremely different’ [291]. He added that to him it seemed that ‘many of our experts and scientists, even including a substantial number of renowned professors, are so stuck within their small silos that they have simply lost touch with reality’.

On September 9, Hill responded to a tweet by the BIRD group which had said that according to Hill, the conclusions of the meta-analysis by Hill et al. remain clearly in favor of ivermectin even after exclusion ofElgazzar et al. trial [292,293]. Hill stated: ‘Misleading information from the BIRD group. In our analysis there is no significant survival benefit for ivermectin in randomized trials after exclusion of apparently fraudulent and biased studies’ [292]. Later on the same days he responded with ‘more misleading information from the BIRD group misquoting our research’ to another tweet by the BIRD group which had said that‘Hill’s work also shows that ivermectin not only reduces the risk of death, it clears the virus from the bloodstream faster than controls, thus ivermectin reduces the time that an infected person can transmit the virus’ [294].

On September 9, Joe Rogan discussed the ‘horse dewormer’ narrative, referring to regulatory capture in theUS [295].

On September 10, a news report in the BMJ discussed US court rulings and ivermectin prescriptions [296].

On September 10, the BIRD group announced that their meta-analysis by Bryant et al. [4] had reached a position in the top ten of 18.9 million articles tracked by Altmetric [297,298].

On September 10, Hill tweeted that the ‘survival benefit of ivermectin disappears when only trials at low risk of bias are analyzed. The reported survival effects are entirely driven by studies at high risk of bias or medical fraud’ [299]. An accompanying graph indicated slightly over 50% benefit (p=0.01) with Elgazzar et al. study included, slightly under 40% benefit (p=0.05) without it but including studies with a high risk for bias, and approximately 4% benefit (p=0.90) with only low risk studies included.

On September 10, a blog article discussing failed communication attempts between ivermectin skeptics and proponents commented that ‘what you are witnessing is just the most absurd example of a decades-long war on re-purposed (aka “non-profitable”) medicines’ [300,301,302].

On September 10, Hindustan Times wrote about a clinical trial (RIVET-COV) with 157 patients with mild to moderate disease carried out by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) which indicated that ivermectin did not reduce the viral load or duration of symptoms [303]. Mohan said that ‘all the ivermectin being prescribed or being taken by people left, right, and centre will definitely not show any effect’; therefore ivermectin should not be used outside clinical trials, although he added that their trial did not investigate possible effect on mortality.

On September 11, TrialSite News wrote about US NIH’s refusal to release information on who had been involved in its decision to recommend neither for nor against ivermectin [304]. However, US CDC had released the names of the members of the working group [305]. According to TrialSite News, three of the nine members, Adimora, Bedimo and Glidden, had disclosed a financial relationship with Merck & Co/MSD.

Another member, Naggie, had later received USD 155 million funding for US NIH’s ACTIV-6 trial which included ivermectin, fluvoxamine and fluticasone (NCT04885530) [306].

On September 11, TrialSite News wrote that Australia’s Therapeutic Good Administration (TGA) had formally placed a national prohibition on off-label prescribing of ivermectin to all general practitioners,citing interruption of vaccination as a factor in the decision [307].

On September 12, a three-day International Covid Summit started in Rome [308,309], with presentationsin the Roman Senate held also in Italian and Spanish and translated into sign language. Lecturers included Roberta Ferrero, Francesca Donato, Albert Bagnai, Luigi Icardi, Ivan Vilibor Sincic, Joseph Tritto, Robert Malone, Mauro Rango, Christof Plothe, David Anderson, Ira Bernstein, Fabio Burigana, Steven Hatfill,Roberto Accinelli, Tess Lawrie, Oswaldo Castaneda, Rosanna Chifari, Antonietta Gatti, Andrea Stramezzi, Peter Mccullough, George Fareed, Pierre Kory, Roberta Lacerda, Carlos Maggi, Bruce Patterson, DilipPawar, Victor Villa, Mattia Perroni and Francesco Matozza. In addition, the summit featured groups of researchers and clinicians from Italy, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Mali, Spain, UK, France, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Canada and US. Several treatment protocols including McCullough et al’s sequenced multidrug protocol [310] and FLCCC’s MATH+protocol were discussed.

On September 13, a Dominican Republic newspaper described details of an early 2020 ivermectin trial by Morgenstern et al. [311,312].

On September 13, a story in Rolling Stone ridiculed ‘anti-vaxxers’ for using povidone iodine mouthwash to prevent COVID-19 [313]. An interviewed gynecologist/obstetrician commented that ‘we use it before surgery to clean the vagina’ and that ‘it could result in iodine poisoning if taken orally’. Another physician who appeared unable to give statements without including profanities in his sentences commented that ‘drinking iodine’ had caused a patient a transient kidney failure and that povidone iodine definitely could not reducethe effects of COVID-19 or prevent its transmission. An ’Australian family physician’ stated that ‘there have been no human studies on the use of Betadine to treat COVID-19, just hypotheses and lab studies’.

On September 13, the Guardian wrote about ‘ivermectin frenzy’ being ‘a cottage industry of advocacy groups, anti-vaccine activists and telehealth companies’ despite stances of FDA, NIH and some US medical and pharmaceutical associations [314]. It noted that FLCCC had signed open letters in favor of ivermectin which had also been signed by ‘anti-vaxx’ organizations. Telehealth sites were said to have connections to a conservative doctor group America’s Frontline Doctors in favor of hydroxychloroquine treatments and whose opinions had been quoted by ‘Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr and numerous QAnon conspiracists’.

On September 13, Mother Jones magazine wrote that people associated with Q-Anon had harassed a hospital where a Q-Anon member had been hospitalized with hundreds of calls and emails, in order to get ivermectin administered to her [315].

On September 14, in a Cochrane Collaboration author interview, Stephanie Weibel and Maria Popp described their ivermectin meta-analysis [316]. The authors said that because of a lack of good-quality evidence, it was unknown whether ivermectin reduces or increases mortality, caused adverse effects, improved or worsened patients’ condition, or increased or decreased viral load, led to more or fewer negative COVID-19 tests 7days after treatment. Likewise, they could not say whether ivermectin prevented COVID-19 infection or reduced the number of deaths after high-risk exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

On September 14, Menichella wrote about Peter McCullough’s influence in Italy and about a protocol developed in Italy by a group led by Giuseppe Remuzzi [317]. The Remuzzi protocol was mainly based on relatively selective COX-2 inhibitors [318]. In a retrospective observational matched-cohort study with 90outpatients and 90 controls with mild disease the proportions of patients who required hospitalization were2% vs 14% (p=0.01); cumulative days of hospitalization were 44 vs 481 days, and costs of hospitalization were EUR 28,000 vs EUR 296,000, respectively. Menichella wrote that the standard of care resulted in approximately 2% mortality; with a ’serious home treatment protocol’ mortality could be lowered to 0.05%.

On September 15, an article by Talwar et al. described a case of a successful management of ivermectinpoisoning [319]. A 6-year-old girl weighing 20.5 kg had accidentally consumed 600 mg of ivermectin (29.3mg/kg). Mechanical ventilation, ceftriaxone, clindamycin, intravenous midazolam, phenytoin and supportivemeasures were utilized. The girl was discharged after nine days of hospitalization.

On September 15, a news report in Willamette Week discussed US biologist Bret Weinstein’s role in the ivermectin controversy, including his influence on Joe Rogan [320].

On September 15, a letter to the editor by Boretti discussed quercetin, suggesting that quercetin might help to lower inflammation, as well as reduce the toxic effects of COVID-19 vaccines and the chances of being infected [321]. Quercetin had been included in the FLCCC protocols since early 2020.

On September 15, Fenton et al. discussed unreliability of current vaccine studies [322].

On September 16, Cheng et al. presented a meta-analysis about efficacy and safety of various medications for treating severe and non-severe COVID-19 patients [323].

On September 16, Malhotra discussed Indian Bar Association’s legal notice to WHO [324].

On September 16, an Australian medical newspaper wrote that a secretive organization called the COVID19 Antiviral Advisory Group had said it had been instructing 200 doctors to prescribe ivermectin and was planning on going public against TGA’s ivermectin ban [325].

On September 17, an article by Singh et al. suggested a positive correlation between European populations’zinc sufficiency status and COVID-19 mortality. The authors noted that the observed association was contrary to what would be expected if zinc sufficiency was protective in COVID-19, suggesting that controlled trials or retrospective analyses of the adverse event patients’ data should be undertaken to correctly guidethe practice of zinc supplementation in COVID-19 [326].

On September 17, an article by Gurung et al. described an in silico study which indicated that ivermectin demonstrated moderate binding to human serum albumin [327].

On September 17, a preprint by Karale et al. presented an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of mortality, need for ICU admission, use of mechanical ventilation, adverse effects and other clinical outcomes

[328]. 52 studies (n=17,561) were included in a qualitative analysis and 44 of those (n=14,019) were included in the meta-analysis. A mortality meta-analysis indicated lower odds of death (OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.34-0.86,p=0.009, 29 studies). As adjuvant therapy, the odds of viral clearance were higher (OR 3.52, 95%CI 1.816.86, p=0.0002, 22 studies), the duration to achieve viral clearance was shorter (p=0.02, 8 studies), andthe need for hospitalization was reduced (OR 0.34, p=0.008, 6 studies). The authors concluded that themortality benefit of ivermectin in COVID-19 is uncertain but as an adjuvant therapy ivermectin may improve viral clearance and reduce the need for hospitalization.

On September 17, a news report by Piper in Vox magazine questioned the validity of studies by Carvallo etal. [329,330], saying that experts on scientific fraud didn’t believe Carvallo conducted his study as described:the data appeared fabricated, key data was missing, study registration and published results didn’t match with each other, Carvallo could not explain these issues, and the hospital in which the study was said to have been conducted stated that it had not been conducted there, to which Carvallo replied that it had been but without the hospital administration knowing [331]. In another context, Lawrie of the BIRD group had been asked what evidence would persuade her that ivermectin didn’t work, to which she had replied thatthere could be nothing that would persuade her. Mills involved in the Together trial commented that themost culpable parties weren’t those who had believed in the apparently fraudulent studies but those whohad conducted, published, and boosted them.

On September 17, Business Insider wrote about FLCCC’s Kory and Marik, calling them ’fringe doctors whipping up false hope that could have deadly consequences’ [332]. According to Business Insider, Kory was’a once respected doctor whose hospital rejected his unsupported treatment ideas’ while Marik was ’a doctor who ostracized himself from mainstream medicine after his high-profile sepsis treatment was a dud’, adding that ’Marik’s failed sepsis protocol later became the backbone of the FLCCC’s first iterations of COVID-19treatment’ (the MATH+ inpatient protocol) [333]. Recently they had been ’sucked (willingly or not) into the embrace of the anti-vaccine far right .. . ivermectin is now a darling drug of QAnon’. A former FLCCCmember, Eric Osgood, had left the group in summer 2021. The editor in chief of Science Communication said that FLCCC’s communication style was objectionable but added that the existence of ’rogue opinions’was a necessary condition for scientific breakthroughs. However not everyone had the skills to assess claimsnor understood how science worked, which had led to ’a conflict between our commitment to freedom of speech and a clash with the nature of scientific truth and people’s right to say anything they want . . . the hype machine they’ve created is out of control’.

On September 17, Seheult on MedCram reviewed ivermectin, with comments from cell biologist Rhonda Patrick [334]. Seheult stressed the importance of taking all treatment options into account; Patrick said ivermectin had seemed to consistently reduce viral load but the hype around ivermectin was pushing researchers away from the subject.

On September 20, an Indian news agency reported that 31 of 75 districts of the state of Uttar Pradesh inIndia were COVID-19 free [335]. In total, the state reported 17 new cases in the last 24 hours out of 182,742samples tested.

On September 20, the Guardian worried about horses being deprived of a deworming agent [336].

On September 21, Brazil’s president Bolsonaro stated that Brazil had supported clinicians’ early treatment measures since the beginning of the pandemic, adding that he could not understand why some countries opposed early treatment measures [337].

On September 21, Ars Technica discussed the validity of Covid Analysis group’s ivmmeta.com meta-analysis[338].

On September 22, a letter to the editor by Lawrence et al. in Nature Medicine concluded that metaanalyses based on summary data alone were inherently unreliable [339]. The authors stated that most,if not all, of the flaws in recent ivermectin meta-analyses would have been immediately detected if metaanalyses were performed on an individual patient data (IPD) basis. They recommended that meta-analysts who study interventions for COVID-19 should request and personally review IPD in all cases, even if IPDsynthesis techniques were not used. They also recommended that all clinical trials published on COVID-19should immediately follow best-practice guidelines and upload anonymized IPD. They authors said that their proposal was a change to a nearly universally accepted practice over many decades and substantially more rigorous than current standards; regardless, the proposed change was imperative.

On September 22, in a FLCCC weekly update, Marik announced an upcoming publication of an article on the pathophysiology of COVID-19 [340].

On September 22, a video by John Campbell described the contents of ivermectin kits used in state of Goain India [341]. The kits in Goa contained pulse oximeter, a thermometer, paracetamol, vitamin C and D,multivitamin tablets containing zinc, ivermectin (10 x 12 mg), doxycycline (10 x 100 mg), and personal protective equipment. The cost of one kit was USD 2.65. The kits used in Uttar Pradesh contained ivermectin, doxycycline, vitamins B, C and D, zinc, paracetamol, thermometer and a pulse oximeter. Outpatients weremonitored by phone twice a day. Campbell said that the intervention had actually been organized under a WHO monitoring program. A WHO report described that since May 5, 2021, 141,610 government teams were moving across 97,941 villages in 75 districts over five days in Uttar Pradesh, a state with a population of 230 million [342]. WHO field officers monitored over 2,000 government teams and visited at least 10,000 households. WHO also said it was to support the Uttar Pradesh government on the compilation of the final reports; these reports had not yet been published.

On September 23, a preprint by Mayer et al. described an intervention program of high-dose ivermectin in COVID-19 carried out by the Ministry of Health of the Province of La Pampa, Argentina [343]. Within five days of symptoms onset, 0.6 mg/kg/day of ivermectin for five days was administered. Active pharmacosurveillance was performed for 21 days, with hepatic laboratory assessments performed in a subset of patients. From 21,232 subjects with COVID-19, 3,266 were offered and agreed to participate in the ivermectin program. 17,966 did not participate and were considered as controls. A total of 567 participantsreported 819 adverse events; 3.13% discontinued ivermectin due to adverse events. Mortality was lower in the ivermectin group in the full group analysis (1.5% vs 2.1%, OR 0.720, p=0.029), as well as in subjects over 40year-old (2.7% vs 4.1%, OR 0,655, p=0.005). ICU admission was significantly lower in the ivermectin groupcompared to controls among participants over 40 year-old (1.2% vs 2.0%, OR 0.608, p=0.024). According to Covid Analysis group [344], in a full group analysis the unadjusted risk of death was 27.6% lower (RR 0.72,p=0.03) and unadjusted risk of ICU admission was 26.0% lower (RR 0.74, p=0.13).

On September 23, several groups of clinicians in favor of early treatments announced a new organization,World Council for Health, an umbrella organization with over 45 affiliated organizations [345]. The council released a home treatment guide with a combination protocol consisting of vitamins C and D, zinc, quercetin, melatonin, ivermectin, mouthwash, ibuprofen, N-acetylcysteine, antihistamines, aspirin, and others [346].

The protocol was one of the first ones to tentatively include iodine (Lugol’s solution).

On September 23, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) dropped ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine from clinical guidelines for the management of adult COVID-19 patients [347,348,349,350].

On September 23, a fact-checking website discussed social media posts claiming that ’ivermectin apparently sterilizes the majority (85%) of men that take it’ and a news report claiming that ’ivermectin causes sterilization in 85 percent of men, study finds’ [351,352].

On September 24, the Guardian wrote about misinformation spreading globally [353].

On September 24, the Guardian wrote about fraudulent ivermectin studies [354].

On September 24, Mashable interviewed ex-FLCCC member Osgood who said that he had initially joined the FLCCC because they were ’forward thinking doctors who were able to get ahead of the profession’ on a few hospital treatments (e.g. the use of anticoagulants) but he had left the organization because of his view that FLCCC insisted on promoting ivermectin over vaccines [355]. He referred to povidone iodine prophylaxis of COVID-19 as misinformation.

On September 26, an article by Marik et al. presented a scoping review of the pathophysiology of COVID-19[356]. The article described severe COVID-19 as one of the most complex of medical conditions known to medical science, noting that an overarching and comprehensive understanding of its pathogenesis, a requirement for the formulation of effective prophylactic and treatment strategies, was still lacking. Threebasic pathologic processes were identified: a pulmonary macrophage activation syndrome with uncontrolled inflammation, a complement-mediated endothelialitis together with a procoagulant state with a thromboticmicroangiopathy, and platelet activation with the release of serotonin and the activation and degranulation of mast cells contributing to the hyper-inflammatory state (quercetin had been a part of FLCCC protocols sinceMarch 2020; in one study, it was found more effective than cromolyn in blocking mast cell cytokine release[357]). The article also mentioned the C-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CCR5) pathway which interacts with chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5 or RANTES).

On September 26, in a discussion with Robert Malone, Geert Vanden Bossche stated that the proper way would have been to vaccinate vulnerable groups only, and mentioned ivermectin chemoprophylaxis as a possible solution [358].

On September 26, the New York Times interviewed the acting head of the New Mexico (US) state health department who claimed that ivermectin ’had contributed to’ deaths of two hospitalized patients who had previously self-medicated with ivermectin ’instead of proven treatments like monoclonal antibodies’ [359].

On September 27, in a discussion with Anmol Ambani and Peter A. McCullough, Marik presented the contents of the new article in a video lecture [360].

On September 27, 5,200 doctors had signed a Global Covid Summit related ’Rome declaration’ [361].

On September 27, an article by Deng et al. presented a systematic review and meta-analysis about the efficacy and safety of ivermectin [362]. Based on an analysis of three observational studies and 14 RCTs representingvery low to moderate quality of evidence, the authors concluded that ivermectin was not efficacious atmanaging COVID-19.

On September 28, an article by Barkati et al. concluded that corticosteroid therapy was an important risk factor for Strongyloides hyperinfection but there were challenges associated with the performance, availability and quality of Strongyloides tests. The authors concluded that presumptive use of ivermectin was reasonablein selected situations [363].

On September 28, an article by Zhang et al. presented a Bayesian network meta-analysis of 222 randomized controlled trials with 102,950 patients, suggesting that imatinib, intravenous immunoglobulin andtocilizumab led to lower risk of death; baricitinib plus remdesivir, colchicine, dexamethasone, recombinanthuman granulocyte colony stimulating factor and tocilizumab indicated lower occurrence of mechanical ventilation; tofacitinib, sarilumab, remdesivir, tocilizumab and baricitinib plus remdesivir increased the hospital discharge rate; convalescent plasma, ivermectin, ivermectin plus doxycycline, hydroxychloroquine, nitazoxanide and proxalutamide resulted in better viral clearance [364]. On a treatment class level, the analysis found that the use of antineoplastic agents was associated with fewer mortality cases, immunostimulants could reduce the risk of mechanical ventilation and immunosuppressants led to higher discharge rates.

On September 28, the New York Times wrote that Facebooks groups promoting ivermectin continued to flourish [365].

On September 28, a rapid review by Cardwell et al. about pharmacological interventions to prevent COVID19 mentioned ivermectin prophylaxis trials [366].

On September 29, a preprint by Budhiraja et at. described secondary infections in hospitalized patients inNorth India, mentioning that 43.5% of the patients had been administered ivermectin [367].

On September 29, referring to FLCCC, BIRD and America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), Scientific Americanwrote about fringe doctors’ groups promoting ivermectin for COVID despite a lack of evidence [368].

On September 29, Chemistry World wrote that ivermectin debacle had exposed flaws in meta-analysis methodology [369]. The report stated that ’the people who’ve done these meta-analyses haven’t stuffed up. . . they haven’t deviated from accepted standards or made big mistakes . . . instead, there is a fundamentalflaw in the approach’.

On September 29, the Hill, the largest independent political news site in the US, wrote that ivermectin disinformation had led to new kinds of chaos [370].

On September 30, a preprint by Schaffer et al. describing changes in dispensing of medicines proposed for re-purposing in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia noted that there had a small but sustained increase in ivermectin dispensing between March 2020 and November 2020 [371].

On September 30, an introduction to Popp et al.’s Cochrane review by Jordan said that at this stage there were very few completed well conducted studies about either prevention or treatment but 31 trials were underway [372].

Discussion

On a closer look it appeared that the quality of some early ivermectin trials had been lower than assumed.

As individual patient data had not been generally available, most parties including various groups publishing meta-analyses had implicitly trusted the summary data and ignored slight inconsistencies. The current best practice guidelines did not require analysis of individual patient data. The proposal that meta-analyses should be performed on individual patient data appeared justified. An additional, likely necessary change to methodology would be adoption of the do-search method, assumedly the most general tool currently available for causal effect identification, and as such an improvement over Bayesian methods [179,373].

In 2014, Every-Palmer et al. noted that little ‘high quality’ (according to evidence-based medicine standards)empirical evidence existed that EBM should benefit the population, i.e. evidence about EBM’s superiority in improving patient outcomes [374]. In 2018, Anjum claimed that EBM relied on a flawed positivist methodology [375]. Recently, Martini claimed that the concept of evidence was insufficiently defined [376].

A fundamental error appeared to be the insistence on trialing single agents instead of combination protocols.

All of the currently utilized early treatment protocols were combination protocols and it was unlikely that the same results could have been obtained with a single agent. Thus, combination protocol trials would have been more likely to produce statistically significant effects. The insistence on large trials, instead of eliminating biases, possibly introduced them. For example, a lack of funding for repurposing may have introduced a severe funding-related bias.

It appeared that prolonged stress and continuing unpredictability of the situation had overwhelmed many,occasionally leading to actions whose consequences were perhaps badly thought out. The situation seemedto amplify preexisting tendencies and weaknesses within groups, leading to group-specific biases, formationof subcultures, or variants of ’groupthink’ [103]. Groups suspecting the pharmaceutical industry, authoritiesand ’the mainstream’ seemed to amplify these tendencies in-group, whereas groups suspecting anything’fringe’ but favoring mechanistic thinking and overreliance on specific methods or paradigms seemed toamplify these tendencies. Groups with a tendency to act out in panic or anger exhibited that behavior,while groups with a tendency to retreat into fearful inaction and silence did that. The central role of trustwas highlighted, yet trust seemed practically nonexistent.

Also strengths were exhibited, most prominently the capability of forming groups and alliances. However,these groups tended to become tribal in their nature, and the result resembled tribal warfare, a practice that the humanity should already have transcended. It seemed as if everyone was trying to take care of others in their own ways but these ways were incompatible with each other; someone once defined conflicts as ’failed attempts to love’.

It also seemed that journalists and the public had an idealized image of science and were trying to find solace in it as in a religion, with some scientists maybe trying to maintain these illusions. One commentator noted that ’society was not ready to watch science in real time’ [377]. Another added that ’science was not prepared to display itself to the public in real time’, while a third said that ’society was not ready to watch science in any other way either’.

In the news media, emotionally manipulative tactics seemed common. A prime example of arrogance and lack of due diligence was the case of Rolling Stone ridiculing povidone iodine use [313], claiming that there had been no human trials about it on COVID-19, despite the fact that there had been several, with promising results [10,378,379,380,381] (for observational studies, see e.g. [382,383]; for an updating list, see [384]).

Ways of reasoning appeared incompatible for example in the case of the Guardian’s critique of the BIRD group affiliating with organizations labeled as anti-vaccine for the purposes of promoting early treatment.

In the view of the BIRD group founder, vaccinations were unrelated to early treatments and, subsequently,the vaccination stances of the affiliates irrelevant. While technically correct, this view predictably appeared confusing.

In a similar manner it could be noted that, for example, the possible usefulness and validity of FLCCC’s protocols was unrelated to FLCCC members’ extra-medical opinions, and that ivermectin was only one component of the synergistic protocols consisting of more than ten components. Also, some news reports[332] severely misrepresented the sepsis protocol [333]. With regard to the social media communications of the FLCCC, it may have made a mistake in leaving these communications largely to a couple of ex-journalists whose communication style appeared unsuitable already in the first half of 2020.

With regard to conflicts of interest, the members of US National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) ivermectinworking group had disclosed several relationships to pharmaceutical companies working on COVID-19 treatments [385]. As mentioned, three of the nine members of the working group [305] had disclosed relationshipswith Merck & Co/MSD which, during the pandemic, had issued a statement against the use of ivermectinin COVID-19 [386], was working on a competing product molnupiravir [387,388,389], and had receivedsignificant US government funding for development of investigational pharmaceuticals for COVID-19 [390].

Adimora had received research support from Gilead Sciences and was a consultant and a member of an advisory board of Merck & Co/MSD; Bedimo was a member of advisory boards of Gilead Sciences, Merck &Co/MSD and ViiV Healthcare (a subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline); Glidden was a consultant to Gilead Sciences and a member of an advisory board of Merck & Co/MSD [385]. A fourth member, Pavia, was a consultant to GlaxoSmithKline. A fifth member, Naggie, the head of US NIH’s ACTIV-6 trial (NCT04885530) [306]had received research support from AbbVie and Gilead Sciences, had a connection to Bristol Myers SquibbCompany, and was a stockholder and an advisory board member of Vir Biotechnology, the producer ofsotrovimab together with GlaxoSmithKline [391]. In summary, more than half of the members of the working group were associated with producers of molnupiravir, sotrovimab, remdesivir (Gilead Sciences),lopinavir/ritonavir (AbbVie), and investigational monoclonal antibodies (Bristol Myers Squibb Company).

However, NIH had specifically intended to involve the industry in its decision-making processes through the ACTIV public-private partnership [392]. Whereas this organizational structure likely appeared beneficialfrom the point of view of a swift development of investigational pharmaceuticals, with regard to repurposingit appeared to have included conflicts of interest by design.

For the pharmaceutical industry, incentives for unethical behavior may currently overpower those for ethical behavior. The current setting appeared designed for gambling [393], hardly the best method for optimizing public health, and it was difficult to see why societies considered it appropriate.

The event descriptions did not delve into details of the experiences of Honduras and the Dominican Republic; readers are encouraged to acquaintance themselves with the original sources [217,106,107,311,312].

These countries used relatively little clinical trial evidence to implement their protocols. Similarly, no RCT evidence on FLCCC protocols exists, yet they have been successfully used. These parties seemed to embrace uncertainty instead of requiring an unattainable level of certainty; high-income countries were probably less accustomed to radical uncertainty than developing countries.

Cameron described critical care archetypes on a two-axis model, with the first axis comparing interventionism(early, aggressive treatment) versus minimalism (’wait and see’) preferences, and the second axis measuring individualism versus collectivism [74]. In this model, the FLCCC appeared high on interventionism and individualism. The ’mainstream’, for example the World Health Organization and national authorities, appeared high on minimalism and collectivism.

During the whole pandemic (and before it), little to no attention was paid to the optimization of innate immunity. If the immune system is dysfunctional or in a suboptimal state, attempts at medicating symptoms including symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to be very effective, and the same likely applies to vaccines. While the role of zinc was acknowledged to some degree, the roles of, for example, copper, selenium and iodine were still mostly ignored. Conventionally, a long-term zinc supplementation without simultaneous copper supplementation is considered a risk for development of copper deficiency which would compromise immune function and host defence [394]; FLCCC recently lowered the dose of zinc supplementation. Astudy on European populations found a positive correlation between zinc sufficiency status and COVID-19mortality and incidence, contrary to what would be expected if zinc sufficiency was protective in COVID-19[326]; however, the result might also indicate lack of zinc ionophores.

Suggested solutions

In addition to the methodological issues there were other types of challenges to overcome. Considering that the nature of communication between parties involved in the ivermectin controversy was predominantly ofa rather violent nature, a method for improving communications would be needed. A suitable method forthe purpose may be the rather well known but rarely applied ’non-violent communication’ (NVC) method developed by Marshall Rosenberg [395,396]. The method presupposes a willingness to a certain degree ofvulnerability in order to express one’s real needs and feelings, and a willingness to actually listen to others without judging.

The method consists of two parts: expressing oneself, and empathically acknowledging others. NVC defines empathy as ’a process of connecting with another by guessing their feelings and needs’ [397]. Friesem describes the expressing part as a sequence of four steps: making observations (not evaluations) without blaming or criticizing, connecting feelings (bodily sensations instead of thoughts) to these observations, expressing the needs/values (not preferences) that caused the feelings, and making requests (concrete actions instead of vague wishes) without demanding [398]. The listening part consists of the same steps but the expressions use the pronoun ’you’ instead of ’I’. The four components are thus expressed as ’when I/you see/hear. . . ’(observation), ’I/you feel. . . ’ (feeling), ’. . . because I/you need/value. . . ’ (need), and ’would you be willing to/would you like. . . ’ (request).

The content must be as free from interpretations as possible, instead expressed in a neutral ’observation anguage’. Feelings, which are functions of the states of satisfaction of various needs, must be identified, named, connected with, and expressed without interpretation. Needs must be distinguished from strategies(strategies include objects and parameters while needs do not). Requests are aimed at assessing how likelyone is to get cooperation for particular strategies for meeting one’s needs; requests should be concrete and specific. Pandemic-specific examples are left as an exercise for the reader. With regard to therapeutics research, it might be worth a try to organize a conference whose participants would be required to find at least one detail they could agree on and then build on that foundation.

Considering that the communications at times appeared hopelessly dysfunctional, more potent methods are likely also needed. To a large extent, the damage associated with the pandemic was not caused by the virus itself but by a preexisting societal conditioning to fixed beliefs and subconscious biases which eventually led to disorganized and dissociative behavior. This ’inflexible disorganization’ subsequently created a massive amount of additional anxiety, burnout and depression.

Psychedelic therapy, currently maybe the second most trendy research subject after COVID-19 itself, wouldlend itself well for resolving these issues [399,400,401,402,403,404]. Psychedelics are likely the most effectivefacilitator of inspection of subconscious biases and fixed beliefs, and as such a valuable tool especially forscientists. Smaller doses may be preferable; this practice is called psycholytic therapy. It differs from the so-called ’microdosing’ in that doses are typically approximately a half or a third of a regular dose, and the effects of the substance are clearly perceived but different from those of high-dose psychedelic therapy.

Subconscious biases could be said to be a type of dissociative phenomena, in which a trigger related to a previous experience of overwhelming trauma triggers a slight dissociation, or a ’defence mechanism’. The mechanism of action of psychedelics in this case, in short, is to enable a person to relive the traumatic experience in order to neutralize the trigger. This must be done in an environment which provides thenecessary support so that the experience would not be experienced as overwhelming once again, as that would constitute a retraumatizing experience. Although various psychedelics produce slightly different effects, all of them would be useful for this kind of work. This includes also substances not always considered psychedelics,namely MDMA which is often called an ’empathogen’, and ketamine, often called a ’dissociative’.

Thus, an available pharmacological method would be off-label ketamine [405,406,407]. A trial by Federet al. compared treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder with either midazolam or ketamine (n=30)(NCT02397889) [408,409,410]. The mean score on the clinician-administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5(CAPS-5) was reduced from 40.1 to 33.2 in the midazolam group, and from 41.9 to 22.5 in the ketaminegroup. A similar reduction was observed for depressive symptoms.

A recent example of conflict resolution through altered states of consciousness, with promising results, was an attempt to alleviate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by organizing ayahuasca group ceremonies [411].

The essence of psychedelic therapy, however, are not the molecules but the ’states of consciousness’, or states of mind, or emotional states, reached with the help of the molecules; change, progress or ’healing’ happens in or through these states. The same states may also be reached by other methods, although psychedelics provide a shortcut in situations in which there is a lack of time, skill or resources; the cost-effectiveness of psychedelic therapy is typically superior to other methods.

Non-pharmaceutical methods capable of inducing altered states include holotropic breathwork developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof [412]. Holotropic breathwork consists of continuous forceful circular breathing,combined with some bodywork and other techniques for guidance. The breathing technique leads to changes in oxygenation and typically to altered states of consciousness with the potential of resolving embodied traumatic experiences or opening new perspectives to overcome fixed beliefs. Grof developed the method as an alternative to LSD therapy sessions and has described the states and results as similar. A gentler approach from Buddhist traditions, also applicable to trauma therapy, is the Ch¨od method based on visualization[413,414].

The Wim Hof method is applicable for innate immune system enhancement [415]. In 2014, Kox et al.proved that sympathetic nervous system and immune system can be voluntarily influenced, and that itis possible to attenuate the innate immune response in humans [416,417]. Healthy volunteers practicing specific breathwork (hyperventilation), meditation and cold exposure techniques exhibited profound increases in the release of epinephrine, which in turn led to increased production of anti-inflammatory mediators and subsequent dampening of the proinflammatory cytokine response elicited by intravenous administration ofbacterial endotoxin. The Wim Hof method has numerous advantages: it is free, available to everyone,unlikely to produce adverse effects, and unconnected to health care systems and clinicians.

Conclusions

Similarly to SARS-CoV-2 virus emerging as a possibly inexhaustible source of ever more infectious variants,the issue of COVID-19 treatments emerged as a possibly inexhaustible source of increasingly complex epistemological challenges. Current best practices of clinical trial result meta-analysis were found to be unsound;methodological changes were proposed. More broadly, the whole approach based on sole reliance on single agent clinical trials that no-one really wanted to fund appeared fundamentally unsound. The pandemic also revealed various severe problems with mindsets and subconscious biases; methods to overcome these issues were also proposed. The impression of the ivermectin controversy as a whole was that what is ideally understood by science will remain out of reach if scientists are riddled with subconscious biases, methodologies are fundamentally unsound, commercial interests dominate, and the behavior more closely resembles tribal warfare than a silent meditation retreat.

Authors’ contributions

The author was responsible for all aspects of the manuscript.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Author details

Independent researcher, Helsinki, Finland. ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8575-9838

References

1. Turkia M. A timeline of ivermectin-related events in the COVID-19 pandemic [April 3, 2021].

   ResearchGate 2021. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13705.36966

2. Turkia M. A continuation of a timeline of ivermectin-related events in the COVID-19 pandemic [June30, 2021]. ResearchGate 2021. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16973.36326

3. Elgazzar A, Eltaweel A, Youssef SA, Hany B, Hafez M, Moussa H. Efficacy and safety of ivermectinfor treatment and prophylaxis of COVID-19 pandemic. Research Square 2020.

   https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-100956/v3

4. Bryant A, Lawrie TA, Dowswell T, Fordham EJ, Mitchell S, Hill SR, et al. Ivermectin for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection. American Journal of Therapeutics 2021.

   https://doi.org/10.1097/mjt.0000000000001402

5. Hill A, Garratt A, Levi J, Falconer J, Ellis L, McCann K, et al. Meta-analysis of randomized trials of ivermectin to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection. Open Forum Infectious Diseases 2021.

   https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofab358

6. Kory P, Meduri GU, Varon J, Iglesias J, Marik PE. Review of the emerging evidence demonstrating the efficacy of ivermectin in the prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19. American Journal ofTherapeutics 2021;28(3). https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Fulltext/2021/00000/Review_of_the_Emerging_Evidence_Demonstrating_the.4.aspx

7. Waltner-Toews D, Biggeri A, Marchi BD, Funtowicz S, Giampietro M, O’Connor M, et al..

   Post-normal pandemics: why COVID-19 requires a new approach to science. STEPS Centre; 2020.

   https://web.archive.org/web/20200403005450/https://steps-centre.org/blog/postnormalpandemics-why-covid-19-requires-a-new-approach-to-science/

8. Funtowicz SO, Ravetz JR. Science for the post-normal age. Futures 1993;25(7):739-55.

   https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-3287(93)90022-l

9. Cherkes M, Dehgani-Morabaki P, Gret Y. Critical care COVID-19 management protocol: clinical case. Proceedings of the Shevchenko Scientific Society – Medical Sciences 2020;62(2).

   https://doi.org/10.25040/ntsh2020.02.17

10. Seet RCS, Quek AML, Ooi DSQ, Sengupta S, Lakshminarasappa SR, Koo CY, et al. Positive impact of oral hydroxychloroquine and povidone-iodine throat spray for COVID-19 prophylaxis: an open-label randomized trial. International Journal of Infectious Diseases 2021;106:314-22.

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2021.04.035

11. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Positive impact of oral hydroxychloroquine and povidone-iodine throat spray for COVID-19 prophylaxis: an open-label randomized trial; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210930165144/https://c19ivermectin.com/seet.html

12. Crogh A, Johansen R. Er hver sten snudd i søken etter beskyttelse mot COVID-19?. NorwegianGovernment; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910150730/https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/horing-om-koronasertifikat-endringer-ismittevernloven/id2847796/Download/?vedleggId=cdb56431-d3a0-4ffa-8646-857b2c823766

13. GlaxoSmithKline. Access and reimbursement information for sotrovimab; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210911163657/https://www.sotrovimab.com/content/dam/cfpharma/hcp-sotrovimab-phase2/en_US/sotrovimab-access-guide.pdf

14. GlaxoSmithKline. Pricing disclosure; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210911163527/https://assets.gskstatic.com/pharma/us/veeva/SOTROVIMAB-WAC.pdf

15. Bergen M. YouTube virus misinformation fight trips on drug touted by Trump. Bloomberg Law; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210619015022/https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-andtelecom-law/youtube-virus-misinformation-fight-trips-on-drug-touted-by-trump

16. Chosidow O, Bernigaud C, Guillemot D, Giraudeau B, Lespine A, Changeux JP, et al. Ivermectin as a potential treatment for COVID-19? PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 2021;15(6):e0009446.

    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009446

17. Payne JD, Sims K, Peacock C, Welch T, Berggren RE. Evidence-based approach to early outpatient treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection. Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings2021;34(4):464-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/08998280.2021.1925049

18. Sajidah ES, Lim K, Wong RW. How SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses build an invasion route to hijack the host nucleocytoplasmic trafficking system. Cells 2021;10(6):1424.

    https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10061424

19. Kumar P, Kumar M, Bedi O, Gupta M, Kumar S, Jaiswal G, et al. Role of vitamins and minerals as immunity boosters in COVID-19. Inflammopharmacology 2021;29(4):1001-16.

    https://doi.org/10.1007/s10787-021-00826-7

20. Duru CE, Umar HIU, Duru IA, Enenebeaku UE, Ngozi-Olehi LC, Enyoh CE. Blocking the interactions between human ACE2 and coronavirus spike glycoprotein by selected drugs: acomputational perspective. Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology 2021;36(2):e2021010.

    https://doi.org/10.5620/eaht.2021010

21. Yanagida S, Satsuka A, Hayashi S, Ono A, Kanda Y. Comprehensive cardiotoxicity assessment ofCOVID-19 treatments using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes.

    Toxicological Sciences 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/toxsci/kfab079

22. Mart´ınez A. Electron donor–acceptor capacity of selected pharmaceuticals against COVID-19.

    Antioxidants 2021;10(6):979. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox10060979

23. Taibbi M. Why has ivermectin become a dirty word?. TK News; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210621182014/https://taibbi.substack.com/p/why-has-ivermectin-become-a-dirty-7bd

24. Taibbi M. Ivermectin: can a drug be right-wing?. TK News; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210626132903/https://taibbi.substack.com/p/ivermectin-can-a-drug-be-right-wing-ca7

25. Tande MI. Leger oppgitt over ensidig fokus p˚a vaksiner: Mener omstridt medisin kunne bremsetcovid-19. Aftenposten; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210618171522/https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/i/x3KjBp/leger-oppgitt-over-ensidig-fokus-paa-vaksiner-mener-omstridt-medisin-k

26. Fevang B, Berdal JE, Damaas JK, Eilertsen H, Ellingsen A, Gjøse BF, et al.. Covid-19: det er ikkegrunnlag for eksperimentell behandling med ivermectin. Aftenposten; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210622141906/https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/debatt/i/7KbrJ8/covid-19-det-er-ikke-grunnlag-foreksperimentell-behandling-med-iverm

27. Huang H, He Q, Guo B, Xu X, Wu Y, Li X. Progress in redirecting antiparasitic drugs for cancer treatment. Drug Design Development and Therapy 2021;15:2747-67.

    https://doi.org/10.2147/dddt.s308973

28. Salvador F, Lucas-Dato A, Roure S, Arsuaga M, P´erez-Jacoiste A, Garc´ıa-Rodr´ıguez M, et al.

    Effectiveness and safety of a single-dose ivermectin treatment for uncomplicated strongyloidiasis inimmunosuppressed patients (ImmunoStrong study): the study protocol. Pathogens 2021;10(7):812.

    https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens10070812

29. Bugge A. For bastant om ivermectin og korona. Aftenposten; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210910153417/https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/debatt/i/39lBrL/for-bastant-om-ivermectin-og-korona

30. Roman YM, Burela PA, Pasupuleti V, Piscoya A, Vidal JE, Hernandez AV. Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

    Clinical Infectious Diseases 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciab591

31. Roman YM, Burela PA, Pasupuleti V, Piscoya A, Vidal JE, Hernandez AV. Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

    medRxiv 2021. https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.21.21257595v2.full.pdf

32. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210606155032/https://c19ivermectin.com/roman.html

33. Cello Health. Healthcare consulting, communications and insights; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210707085834/https://cellohealth.com/

34. Cello Health. Strategic healthcare consulting; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20200820141257/https://cellohealth.com/what-we-do/strategic-and-scientific-consulting/

35. Cello Health. Cello Health commitment on COVID-19; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210707092039/https://cellohealth.com/cello-health-commitment-on-covid-19/

36. Patterson BK, Guevara-Coto J, Yogendra R, Francisco EB, Long E, Pise A, et al. Immune-based-prediction of COVID-19 severity and chronicity decoded using machine learning. Frontiers inImmunology 2021;12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2021.700782

37. Turkia M. COVID-19, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and iodide. SSRN ElectronicJournal 2020. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3604987

38. Kong Y, Han J, Wu X, Zeng H, Liu J, Zhang H. VEGF-D: a novel biomarker for detection of COVID-19 progression. Critical Care 2020;24(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13054-020-03079-y

39. Smadja DM, Mentzer SJ, Fontenay M, Laffan MA, Ackermann M, Helms J, et al. COVID-19 is a systemic vascular hemopathy: insight for mechanistic and clinical aspects. Angiogenesis 2021.

    https://doi.org/10.1007/s10456-021-09805-6

40. Carneiro AS, Mafort TT, Lopes AJ. A 34-year-old woman from Brazil with pulmonarylymphangioleiomyomatosis diagnosed by raised serum vascular endothelial growth factor-D(VEGF-D) levels and lung cysts on computed tomography imaging presenting with COVID-19 pneumonia. American Journal of Case Reports 2021;22. https://doi.org/10.12659/ajcr.932660

41. FDA warns against using animal drug as Covid treatment. Bangkok Post; 2021.

    https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2140695/fda-warns-against-using-animaldrug-as-covid-cure

42. Nippes RP, Macruz PD, da Silva GN, Scaliante MHNO. A critical review on environmental presence of pharmaceutical drugs tested for the covid-19 treatment. Process Safety and Environmental Protection 2021;152:568-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2021.06.040

43. Syed M, Marik PE. Dr. Paul Marik discusses latest trends in COVID management; 2021.

    https://youtu.be/O4gkLn-z4II

44. Health Advisory and Recovery Team. New research suggests ivermectin works – treatments continue to be censored; 2021. https://www.hartgroup.org/ivermectin-works/

45. Merlan A. The ivermectin advocates’ war has just begun. Vice; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210701171621/https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3d5gv/ivermectin-covid-treatment-advocates-rogan-weinstein-hecker

46. Vallejos J, Zoni R, Bangher M, Villamandos S, Bobadilla A, Plano F, et al. Ivermectin to prevent hospitalizations in patients with COVID-19 (IVERCOR-COVID19) a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. BMC Infectious Diseases 2021;21(1).

    https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-021-06348-5

47. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Ivermectin to prevent hospitalizations in patients with COVID-19 (IVERCOR-COVID19) a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210930165518/https://c19ivermectin.com/vallejos2.html

48. Adegboro B, Lawani OA, Oriaifo SE, Abayomi SA. A review of the anti-viral effects of ivermectin.

    African Journal of Clinical and Experimental Microbiology 2021;22(3):322-9.

    https://doi.org/10.4314/ajcem.v22i3.2

49. KanekoaTheGreat. Dr. Satoshi Omura x Katsuhito Nakajima dialogue part 1 – Japanese EUA development bill. Twitter; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210707120918/https://t.me/s/KanekoaTheGreat/658

50. Crawford M. The meta-analytical fixers: an ivermectin tale; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210702114527/https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-meta-analytical-fixers-an-ivermectin

51. Fordham EJ, Lawrie TA, Bryant A. Open letter: statement of concern and request for retraction;

52. https://web.archive.org/web/20210703171341/https://trialsitenews.com/wpcontent/uploads/2021/07/LetterToEditorReRoman-et-al-3-July-2021_R.pdf

53. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials; 2021. https://c19ivermectin.com/roman.html

54. Hill A, Abdulamir A, Ahmed S, Asghar A, Babalola OE, Basri R, et al. Meta-analysis of randomized trials of ivermectin to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection. Research Square 2021.

    https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-148845/v1

55. News roundup: WHO eyes ‘protecting’ ivermectin from use for COVID-19, refocus on NTD programs.

    TrialSite News; 2021. https://youtu.be/KQGYwvSg4CQ

56. WHO eyes ‘protecting’ ivermectin from use for COVID as it plans to emerge out of pandemic and refocus on NTD programs. TrialSite News; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210630162539/https://trialsitenews.com/who-eyes-protecting-ivermectin-from-use-for-covid-as-it-plans-to-emerge-out-of-pandemicrefocus-on-ntd-programs/

57. Who is declaring what’s legitimate information vs. misinformation on Wikipedia?. TrialSite News;

58. https://web.archive.org/web/20210701170212/https://trialsitenews.com/who-is-declaring-whats-legitimate-information-vs-misinformation-on-wikipedia/

59. Cheap hair lice pill from the UK ’cures’ Covid, according to new research. Yahoo News UK; 2021.

    https://uk.news.yahoo.com/cheap-hair-lice-pill-uk-102800483.html

60. World Health Organization. WHO recommends life-saving interleukin-6 receptor blockers for COVID-19 and urges producers to join efforts to rapidly increase access; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210706193436/https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2021who-recommends-life-saving-interleukin-6-receptor-blockers-for-covid-19-and-urges-producers-to-join-efforts-to-rapidly-increase-access

61. Rochwerg B, Siemieniuk RA, Agoritsas T, Lamontagne F, Askie L, Lytvyn L, et al. A living WHO guideline on drugs for COVID-19. BMJ 2020:m3379. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3379

62. WHO Rapid Evidence Appraisal for COVID-19 Therapies (REACT) Working Group. Association Between Administration of IL-6 Antagonists and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19. JAMA 2021. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.11330

63. M´edecins Sans Fronti`eres. Tocilizumab, second drug ever recommended by WHO for COVID-19, will remain unaffordable and inaccessible for most of the world; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210706192144/https://reliefweb.int/report/world/tocilizumab-second-drug-ever-recommended-who-covid-19-will-remain-unaffordable-and

64. Malin JJ, Spinner CD, Janssens U, Welte T, Weber-Carstens S, Sch¨alte G, et al. Key summary of German national treatment guidance for hospitalized COVID-19 patients – key pharmacologic recommendations from a national German living guideline using an Evidence to Decision Framework(last updated 17.05.2021). Infection 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-021-01645-2

65. Brasier AR. The nuclear factor-kB-interleukin-6 signalling pathway mediating vascular inflammation.

    Cardiovascular Research 2010;86(2):211-8. https://doi.org/10.1093/cvr/cvq076

66. Zhang X, Song Y, Ci X, An N, Ju Y, Li H, et al. Ivermectin inhibits LPS-induced production of inflammatory cytokines and improves LPS-induced survival in mice. Inflammation Research2008;57(11):524-9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00011-008-8007-8

67. Haitchpeasauce. Comment on: WHO recommends life-saving interleukin-6 receptor blockers.

    r/ivermectin. Reddit; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210708064410/https://www.reddit.com/r/ivermectin/comments/of785z/who_recommends_lifesaving_i/h4b04sg

68. Fagerlund R, Kinnunen L, K¨ohler M, Julkunen I, Mel´en K. NF-κB is transported into the nucleus by importin α3 and importin α4. Journal of Biological Chemistry 2005;280(16):15942-51.

    https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.m500814200

69. Lee BY. President Biden proposes ARPA-H, new USD 6.5 billion health entity to transform how research is done. Forbes; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210706201122/https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/07/06/president-biden-proposes-arpa-h-new-65-billion-health-entity-to-transform-how-research-is-done/

70. Margolin L, Luchins J, Margolin D, Margolin M, Lefkowitz S. 20-week study of clinical outcomes of over-the-counter COVID-19 prophylaxis and treatment. Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine 2021;26:2515690X2110261. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515690x211026193

71. Cadegiani FA, Goren A, Wambier CG, McCoy J. Early COVID-19 therapy with azithromycin plus nitazoxanide, ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine in outpatient settings significantly improved COVID-19 outcomes compared to known outcomes in untreated patients. New Microbes and NewInfections 2021:100915. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nmni.2021.100915

72. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Early COVID-19 therapy with azithromycin plus nitazoxanide, ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine in outpatient settings significantly reduced symptoms compared to known outcomes in untreated patients; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210930131517/https://c19ivermectin.com/cadegianii.html

73. Cadegiani FA, Goren A, Wambier CG, McCoy J. Early COVID-19 therapy with azithromycin plus nitazoxanide ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine in outpatient settings significantly reduced symptomscompared to known outcomes in untreated patients. medRxiv 2020.

    https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.31.20223883

74. Hazan S, Dave S, Gunaratne AW, Dolai S, Clancy RL, McCullough PA, et al. Effectiveness of ivermectin-based multidrug therapy in severe hypoxic ambulatory COVID-19 patients. medRxiv 2021.

    https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.06.21259924

75. Muthusamy S, Gopal H, Manivarma T, Pradhan SN, Prabhu PR. Virtual screening reveals potential anti-parasitic drugs inhibiting the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Journal ofVirology & Antiviral Research 2021;110(4). https://www.scitechnol.com/abstract/virtualscreening-reveals-potential-antiparasitic-drugs-inhibiting-the-receptor-bindingdomain-of-sarscov2-spike-protein-16398.html

76. Cameron PA, Haddara W. Critical care archetypes. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia/Journalcanadien d'anesth´esie 2021;68(10):1471-3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12630-021-02062-7

77. Neil M, Fenton N. Bayesian meta analysis of ivermectin effectiveness in treating Covid-19 disease.

    ResearchGate 2021. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31800.88323

78. Mazer B. The FDA is a melting iceberg; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210716050153if_/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/americas-drug-approval-system-unsustainable/619422/

79. Belluck P. F.D.A. panel declines to endorse controversial Alzheimer’s drug; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20201106101552/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/06/health/aducanumab-alzheimers-drug-fda-panel.html

80. Flam F. It’s not ivermectin but the human immune system that can fight Covid better. The Print;

81. https://web.archive.org/web/20210714153742/https://theprint.in/opinion/its-not-ivermectin-but-the-human-immune-system-that-can-fight-covid-better/696131/

82. Mathachan SR, Sardana K, Khurana A. Current use of ivermectin in dermatology, tropical medicine, and COVID-19: an update on pharmacology, uses, proven and varied proposed mechanistic action.

    Indian Dermatology Online Journal 2021;12(4)

83. Ravikirti, Roy R, Pattadar C, Raj R, Agarwal N, Biswas B, et al. Evaluation of ivermectin as a potential treatment for mild to moderate COVID-19: a double-blind randomized placebo controlled trial in Eastern India. Journal of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences 2021;24:343-50.

    https://doi.org/10.18433/jpps32105

84. Davey M. Huge study supporting ivermectin as Covid treatment withdrawn over ethical concerns.

    Guardian; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210716085415/https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covidtreatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns

85. Lawrence J. Why was a major study on ivermectin for COVID-19 just retracted?. Grftr News; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210716080849/https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-studyon-ivermectin-for-covid-19-just-retracted/

86. Lawrence J. Author: Jack Lawrence. Grftr News; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210717131458/https://grftr.news/author/jacklawrence/

87. Brown N. Some problems in the dataset of a large study of ivermectin for the treatment of Covid-19;

88. https://web.archive.org/web/20210716123346/https://steamtraen.blogspot.com/2021/07/Some-problems-with-the-data-from-a-Covid-study.html

89. Meyerowitz-Katz G. Is ivermectin for Covid-19 based on fraudulent research?; 2021.

    https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research5cc079278602

90. CovidAnalysis. Ivermectin for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 60 studies, July 15, 2021, version99; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210716090548/https://ivmmeta.com/ivm-meta.pdf

91. CovidAnalysis. Ivermectin for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 62 studies, July 9, 2021, version98; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210715230428/https://ivmmeta.com/ivm-meta.pdf

92. Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance and British Ivermectin Recommendation Group. Joint statement of the FLCCC Alliance and British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group onretraction of early research on ivermectin; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210717092835/https://covid19criticalcare.com/wpcontent/uploads/2021/07/FLCCC-BIRD-Guardian-Elgazzar-Study-FINAL-1.pdf

93. de Melo GD, Lazarini F, Larrous F, Feige L, Kornobis E, Levallois S, et al. Attenuation of clinical and immunological outcomes during SARS-CoV-2 infection by ivermectin. EMBO MolecularMedicine 2021. https://doi.org/10.15252/emmm.202114122

94. Hill A. Removal of Elgazzar trial, July 16, 2021. Twitter; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210717132354/https://twitter.com/DrAndrewHill/status/1416019217485377537

95. Bolies C. Tucker Carlson hyped these fringe COVID theories. The science just fell apart. Daily Beast;

96. https://web.archive.org/web/20210717001308/https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-studies-on-child-mask-wearing-ivermectin-are-retracted

97. Ebrahim Z. A study showing promising evidence of ivermectin for Covid-19 retracted amid ‘ethical concerns’. Health 24; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210716150208/https://www.news24.

    com/amp/health24/medical/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/a-study-showing-promising evidence-of-ivermectin-for-covid-19-retracted-amid-ethical-concerns-20210716

98. Razak DA. Use of ivermectin a continuous hot topic. New Straits Times; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210716171243/https://www.nst.com.my/amp/opinion/columnists/2021/07/709059/use-ivermectin-continuous-hot-topic

99. Alfaham T. UAE announces two-week treatment results for COVID-19 medicine Sotrovimab.

    Emirates News Agency; 2021.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20210717192604/https://wam.ae/en/details/1395302953635

100. Weisser R. Hunt goes off script with ivermectin. Spectator Australia; 2017.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210715054421/https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/07/hunt-goes-off-script-with-ivermectin/

101. Covid Medical Network; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210904071342/https://www.covidmedicalnetwork.com/

102. Well-respected Australian researcher: consider triple therapy (ivermectin, zinc, doxycycline) for COVID-19. TrialSite News; 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200820141526/https://trialsitenews.com/well-respected-australian-researcher-consider-triple-therapy-ivermectin-zinc-doxycycline-for-covid-19/

103. Menon S. Covid: ivermectin, milk among Indonesia’s unproven ’cures’. BBC; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210719231942/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asiapacific-57838033

104. Fiore K. Large ivermectin study retracted. MedPage Today; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210720193755/https://www.medpagetoday.com/specialreports/exclusives/93658

105. Burling M, Zingmark H, Blomberg S. Ivermektin har godk¨ants f¨or behandling runt om i v¨arlden.

     Dagens Medicin; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210910150038/https://www.dagensmedicin.se/opinion/debatt/ivermektin-skulle-kunna-vara-det-som-avslutar-pandemin/

106. Hiltzik M. Column: Ivermectin, another bogus COVID treatment, becomes a darling of conspiracy-mongers. Los Angeles Times 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210722131019/https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-07-22/ivermectin-another-bogus-covid-treatment

107. Varadarajan T. Interview: how science lost the public’s trust. Wall Street Journal; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210908072319/https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/how-science-lost-the-public-s-trust/

108. Hart P. Irving L. Janis’ Victims of Groupthink. Political Psychology 1991;12(2):247-78.

     http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791464

109. Mansour SM, Shamma RN, Ahmed KA, Sabry NA, Esmat G, Mahmoud AA, et al. Safety of inhaled ivermectin as a repurposed direct drug for treatment of COVID-19: A preclinical tolerance study.

     International Immunopharmacology 2021;99:108004.

     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intimp.2021.108004

110. British Ivermectin Recommendation Group. You’re invited to World Ivermectin Day!; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210904091650/https://worldivermectinday.org/

111. Ontai S, Zeng L, Hoffman MS, Pascua FV, VanBuren V, McCullough PA. Early multidrug treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and decreased case fatality rates in Honduras. medRxiv 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.21.21260223

112. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Early multidrug treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and decreased case fatality rates in Honduras; 2021. https://c19ivermectin.com/ontai.html

113. Kory P. Dr. Pierre Kory’s medical lecture for the physicians and citizens of Malaysia. Odysee; 2021.

     https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/Pierre-Kory-Malaysia-Lecture:6

114. Soong E. Asia’s most influential 2020: Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew. Tatler; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210904092254/https://www.tatlerasia.com/the-scene/peopleparties/tan-sri-lee-kim-yew-country-heights-covid-19-rukun-negara-philanthropist

115. Bartsch G. Kein Wundermittel gegen Covid-19; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210909132947/https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/single/news/kein-wundermittel-gegen-covid-19/

116. Cochrane Deutschland. Ivermectin: Keine Evidenz f¨ur Wirksamkeit gegen COVID-19; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210801134627/https://www.cochrane.de/de/news/ivermectin-keine-evidenz-f%C3%BCr-wirksamkeit-gegen-covid-19

117. Ivermectin: dobr´a tolerance l´ecby a moˇzn´y pozitivn´ı efekt. Fakultn´ı nemocnice u sv. Anny v Brnˇe;

118. https://ssgbrno.cz/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SL0221_web-01-1.pdf

119. CZEch Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (CZECRIN); 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210911172720/https://czecrin.cz/en/home/

120. Popp M, Stegemann M, Metzendorf MI, Gould S, Kranke P, Meybohm P, et al. Ivermectin for preventing and treating COVID-19. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2021;2021(8).

     https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd015017.pub2

121. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Ivermectin for preventing and treating COVID-19; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210923143512/https://c19ivermectin.com/popp.html

122. Henderson DR, Hooper CL. Opinion: Why Is the FDA attacking a safe, effective drug?. Wall StreetJournal; 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-ivermectin-covid-19-coronavirus-masksanti-science-11627482393

123. Henderson DR, Hooper CL. Opinion: Writers missed ivermectin study retraction. Wall Street Journal2021.

     https://www.wsj.com/articles/egyptian-ivermectin-study-retracted-covid-11627527903

124. GlaxoSmithKline. GSK and Vir Biotechnology announce Joint Procurement Agreement with European Commission for COVID-19 treatment, sotrovimab; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210913181500/https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/pressreleases/gsk-and-vir-biotechnology-announce-joint-procurement-agreement-witheuropean-commission-for-covid-19-treatment-sotrovimab/

125. Kerala Covid cases: this could explain Kerala’s soaring Covid cases. Times of India; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210801023541/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/this-may-explain-why-covid-cases-are-still-soaring-in-kerala/articleshow/84862049.cms

126. Kaj´ınek M. Ivermektin: V´ysledky pˇri l´eˇcen´ı, schvalov´an´ı a potlaˇcov´an´ı jeho vyuˇz´ıv´an´ı (retrospektiva).

     Epoch Times; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210911165422/https://www.epochtimes.cz/2021/07/30/ivermektin-vysledky-pri-leceni-a-potlacovani-jeho-vyuzivani-retrospektiva/

127. Rella SA, Kulikova YA, Dermitzakis ET, Kondrashov FA. Rates of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and vaccination impact the fate of vaccine-resistant strains. Scientific Reports 2021;11(1).

     https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95025-3

128. Woodward A, Brueck H. Coronavirus transmission among vaccinated people could raise the risk of aneven more dangerous variant. Business Insider; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210801122546/https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-transmission-vaccinated-people-risk-of-resistant-variant-2021-7

129. Kiekens JP. Dr George Fareed – the Outpatient Treatment of C19. CovExit; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210829011148/https://covexit.com/dr-george-fareed-the-outpatient-treatment-of-c19/

130. Pfeiffer MB. Top Yale doctor/researcher: ‘ivermectin works,’ including for long-haul COVID. TrialSiteNews; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210323031913/https://trialsitenews.com/top-yale-doctor-researcher-ivermectin-works-including-for-long-haul-covid/

131. Biber A, Mandelboim M, Harmelin G, Lev D, Ram L, Shaham A, et al. Favorable outcome on viral load and culture viability using ivermectin in early treatment of non-hospitalized patients with mild COVID-19 – a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial. medRxiv 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.31.21258081

132. Jaffe-Hoffman M. Israeli scientist says COVID-19 could be treated for under USD 1/day. Jerusalem Post; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210802124110/https://www.jpost.com/healthscience/israeli-scientist-says-covid-19-could-be-treated-for-under-1-day-675612

133. Covid Medical Network. From your fellow Australian doctors and health professionals: primum non nocere – first, do no harm; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210803014601/https://covidmedicalnetwork.com/open-letters/Covid-Medical-Network-Letter-to-Doctors-and-Health-Professionals-02082021.pdf

134. Reardon S. Flawed ivermectin preprint highlights challenges of COVID drug studies. Nature2021;596(7871):173-4. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02081-w

135. Sengthong C, Yingklang M, Intuyod K, Haonon O, Pinlaor P, Jantawong C, et al. Repeated ivermectin treatment induces ivermectin resistance in Strongyloides ratti by upregulating the expression of ATP-binding cassette transporter genes. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2021. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.21-0377

136. Santin AD, Scheim DE, McCullough PA, Yagisawa M, Borody TJ. Ivermectin: a multifaceted drug of Nobel prize-honoured distinction with indicated efficacy against a new global scourge COVID-19.

     New Microbes and New Infections 2021;43:100924. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nmni.2021.100924

137. Covid-19: the mystery of rising infections in India’s Kerala. BBC; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210822115518/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58054124

138. Dr. George Fareed discusses his COVID protocol on ’Hannity’. Fox News; 2021.

     https://video.foxnews.com/v/6266298686001

139. Behera P, Patro BK, Padhy BM, Mohapatra PR, Bal SK, Chandanshive PD, et al. Prophylactic role of ivermectin in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection among healthcare workers.

     Cureus 2021. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.16897

140. Rana M, Yadav P, Chowdhury P. A computational study of ivermectin and doxycycline combination drug against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Research Square 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-755838/v1

141. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: A computational study of ivermectin and doxycycline combination drug against SARS-CoV-2 infection; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210910200651/https://c19ivermectin.com/rana.html

142. Niemi V. Amerikkalaistutkijat v¨aitt¨av¨at, ett¨a koronatautiin on jo olemassa tehokas l¨a¨ake, mutta sit¨aei juuri k¨aytet¨a – N¨ain Fimean asiantuntija kommentoi tutkijaryhm¨an ylist¨am¨a¨a ivermektiini¨a.

     Tekniikan Maailma; 2021. https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/amerikkalaistutkijat-vaittavatetta-koronatautiin-on-jo-olemassa-tehokas-laake-mutta-sita-ei-juuri-kayteta-nainfimean-asiantuntija-kommentoi-tutkijaryhman-ylistamaa-ivermektiinia/

143. Kow CS, Hasan SS. Pitfalls in reporting sample size calculation across randomized controlled trials involving ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. American Journal of Therapeutics 2021;28(5):e616-9. https://doi.org/10.1097/mjt.0000000000001441

144. Mills E. August 6, 2021: Early treatment of COVID-19 with repurposed therapies: the TOGETHER adaptive platform trial (Edward Mills, PhD, FRCP). NIH Collaboratory; 2021. https://rethinkingclinicaltrials.org/news/august-6-2021-early-treatment-of-covid-19-with-repurposed-therapies-the-together-adaptive-platform-trial-edward-mills-phd-frcp/

145. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Early treatment of COVID-19 with repurposed therapies: the TOGETHER adaptive platform trial; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210926052219/https://c19ivermectin.com/togetherivm.html

146. Public Health England. SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England.

     Technical briefing 20; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210911142715/https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1009243/Technical_Briefing_20.pdf

147. Baker N, Reardon S. Coronapod: ivermectin, what the science says. Nature 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02178-2

148. Hope JR. India’s ivermectin blackout. Desert Review; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210912090031/https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indias-ivermectin-blackout/article_e3db8f46-f942-11eb-9eea-77d5e2519364.html

149. Hope JR. India’s ivermectin blackout: part II. Desert Review; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210818115417/https://www.thedesertreview.com/news/national/indias-ivermectin-blackout-partii/article_a0b6c378-fc78-11eb-83c0-93166952f425.html

150. Voices in favor of Dr. Kazuhiro Nagao’s proposal. Yahoo! Japan; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210810073824/https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/50ec3280bee65b5a3699e8c082e09775628273a0

151. La Pampa expondr´a a la comunidad cient´ıfica los resultados del Programa de Intervenci´on Monitoreado de Ivermectina. ImpactoCastex; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210921125902/https://impactocastex.com.ar/2021/08/10/la-pampa-expondra-a-la-comunidad-cientifica-los-resultados-del-programa-de-intervencion-monitoreado-de-ivermectina/

152. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: La Pampa expondr´a a la comunidad cient´ıfica los resultados delPrograma de Intervenci´on Monitoreado de Ivermectina; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210910200816/https://c19ivermectin.com/lapampa.html

153. Hiltzik M. Column: Major study of ivermectin, the anti-vaccine crowd’s latest COVID drug, finds ’noeffect whatsoever’. Los Angeles Times; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210811223004/https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-08-11/ivermectin-no-effect-covid

154. Cobos-Campos R, Api˜naniz A, Parraza N, Cordero J, Garc´ıa S, Orru˜no E. Potential use of ivermectin for the treatment and prophylaxis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Current Research in TranslationalMedicine 2021;69(4):103309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retram.2021.103309

155. Bossche GV. Cautious suggestions on a way out of a mismanaged Covid-19 pandemic; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210525221637/https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/cautious-suggestions-on-a-way-out-of-a-mismanaged-covid-19-pandemic

156. Bossche GV. DVM, PhD Geert Vanden Bossche; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210526184034/https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/

157. Kupferschmidt K. Evolving threat. Science 2021

158. Elavarasi A, Sagiraju HKR, Garg RK, Paul SS, Ratre B, Sirohiya P, et al. Clinical features, demography and predictors of outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection in a tertiary care hospital in India –a cohort study. medRxiv 2021. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.10.21261855

159. Pedroso C, Vaz S, Netto EM, Souza D, Deminco F, Mayoral R, et al. Self-prescribed Ivermectin use is associated with a lower rate of seroconversion in health care workers diagnosed with COVID, in adose-dependent response. The Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases 2021;25(4):101603.

     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjid.2021.101603

160. Zhou S, Wu H, Ning W, Wu X, Xu X, Ma Y, et al. Ivermectin has new application in inhibiting colorectal cancer cell growth. Frontiers in Pharmacology 2021;12.

     https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.717529

161. Smith D. Grand rounds rethinking clinical trials 08-13-2021. NIH Collaboratory; 2021.

     https://vimeo.com/588283651

162. Nagao K. Unstoppable screams; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210813182318/http://blog.drnagao.com/2021/08/post-7678.html

163. TV interview of Dr. Kazuhiro Nagao. Twitter; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210824034259/https://twitter.com/FonzyDizzle/status/1429823574898974720

164. Kiekens JP. Interview of Dr Andrea Stramezzi, aka the COVID healer. CovExit; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210917075904/https://covexit.com/interview-of-dr-andrea-stramezzi-aka-the-covid-healer/

165. Idrossiclorochina nella terapia dei pazienti adulti con COVID 19. Agenza Italiana del Farmaco; 2020.

     hhttps://www.aifa.gov.it/documents/20142/0/idrossiclorochina1-002_01.04.2020.pdf

166. Terapie alternative che funzionano. Il dottor Stramezzi che ha guarito 160 pazienti affetti da Covid

167. FarodiRoma; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210917111523/https://www.farodiroma.it/terapie-alternative-che-funzionano-il-dottor-stramezzi-che-haguarito-160-pazienti-affetti-da-covid-19/

168. Pierpaolo Sileri, il chirurgo viceministro della Salute. ANSA; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210917092411/https://www.ansa.it/canale_saluteebenessere/notizie/sanita/2019/09/13/ansa-box-sileri-ilchirurgo-viceministro-della-salute_97183290-6e1e-47d4-9e5f-d0e174abf9b6.html

169. Pierpaolo Sileri. Senato della Repubblica; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210315235759/http://www.senato.it/leg/18/BGT/Schede/Attsen/00014224.htm

170. Correale P, Mutti L, Pentimalli F, Baglio G, Saladino RE, Sileri P, et al. HLA-B44 and C01 Prevalence Correlates with Covid19 Spreading across Italy. International Journal of MolecularSciences 2020;21(15):5205. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21155205

171. Italie: les traitements pr´ecoces marchent et sont approuv´es par le S´enat italien, Dr Stramezzi.

     FranceSoir; 2021. https://www.francesoir.fr/videos-les-debriefings/italie-les-traitements-precoces-marchent-et-sont-approuves-par-le-senat

172. Chahla RE, Ruiz LM, Ortega ES, Marcelo F Morales R, Barreiro F, George A, et al. Intensivetreatment with ivermectin and iota-carrageenan as pre-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19 in healthcare workers from Tucuman, Argentina. American Journal of Therapeutics 2021;28(5):e601-4.

     https://doi.org/10.1097/mjt.0000000000001433

173. Chahla RE. Prophylaxis Covid-19 in healthcare agents by intensive treatment with ivermectin and iota-carrageenan. ClinicalTrialsgov 2021. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04701710

174. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Intensive treatment with ivermectin and iota-carrageenan as pre-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19 in health care workers from Tucuman, Argentina; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210914083340/https://c19ivermectin.com/ivercartuc.html

175. Winter G. Understanding ivermectin. Journal of Prescribing Practice 2021;3(8):304-5.

     https://doi.org/10.12968/jprp.2021.3.8.304

176. Gonz´alez-Paz L, Hurtado-Le´on ML, Lossada C, Fern´andez-Mater´an FV, Vera-Villalobos J, Loro˜no M,et al. Structural deformability induced in proteins of potential interest associated with COVID-19 by binding of homologues present in ivermectin: comparative study based in elastic networks models.

     Journal of Molecular Liquids 2021;340:117284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2021.117284

177. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Structural deformability induced in proteins of potential interest associated with COVID-19 by binding of homologues present in ivermectin: comparative study based in elastic networks models; 2021. https://c19ivermectin.com/gonzalezpaz2.html

178. Andrew Selsky. Oregon Poison Center: don’t use ivermectin for COVID. Associated Press; 2021.

     https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2021-09-17/oregon-poison-center-dont-use-ivermectin-for-covid

179. Hiltzik M. Column: With fluvoxamine, doctors find an old drug that may actually work against COVID-19. Los Angeles Times; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210818201031/https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-08-18/fluvoxamine-covid

180. Gonz´alez-Paz L, Hurtado-Le´on ML, Lossada C, Fern´andez-Mater´an FV, Vera-Villalobos J, Loro˜no M, et al. Comparative study of the interaction of ivermectin with proteins of interest associated with SARS-CoV-2: a computational and biophysical approach. Biophysical Chemistry 2021;278:106677.

     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpc.2021.106677

181. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Comparative study of the interaction of ivermectin with proteins ofinterest associated with SARS-CoV-2: a computational and biophysical approach; 2021.

     https://c19ivermectin.com/gonzalezpaz.html

182. Amaya-Aponte SC. Ivermectina un medicamento de uso indiscriminado en el manejo del Covid-19.

     MedUNAB 2021;24(2):151-4. https://doi.org/10.29375/01237047.4195

183. Australian government. TGA provisionally approves GlaxoSmithKline’s COVID-19 treatment: sotrovimab (XEVUDY); 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210820040459/https://www.tga.gov.au/media-release/tga-provisionally-approves-glaxosmithklines-covid-19-treatment-sotrovimab-xevudy

184. Popp M, Kranke P, Meybohm P, Metzendorf MI, Skoetz N, Stegemann MS, et al. Evidence on the efficacy of ivermectin for COVID-19: another story of apples and oranges. BMJ Evidence-BasedMedicine 2021:bmjebm-2021111791. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2021-111791

185. Tikka S, Hyttinen A, Karvanen J. Causal effect identification from multiple incomplete data sources: a general search-based approach. Journal of Statistical Software 2021;99(5).

     https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v099.i05

186. Karvanen J, Tikka S, Hyttinen A. Do-search: a tool for causal inference and study design with multiple data sources. Epidemiology 2020;32(1):111-9.

     https://doi.org/10.1097/ede.0000000000001270

187. Karvanen J. Study design in causal models. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 2014;42(2):361-77.

     https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.2958

188. Tikka S, Karvanen J. Identifying causal effects with the R package causaleffect. Journal of Statistical Software 2017;76(12). https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v076.i12

189. Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. I-MASS protocol; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210812070854/https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19protocols/i-mass-protocol/

190. US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all.

     Stop it.. Twitter; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210821120341/https://twitter.com/US_FDA/status/1429050070243192839

191. US Food and Drug Administration. Why you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210309024138/https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumerupdates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19

192. Senica S. Resnica in miti o ivermektinu. Delo 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210913154339/https://www.delo.si/novice/znanoteh/resnica-in-miti-o-ivermektinu/

193. ˇClanki o rabi ivermektina pri zdravljenju covida-19; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210913155146/https://ivermektin.si/ivermektin-clanki.php

194. Meyerowitz-Katz G. Is ivermectin for Covid-19 based on fraudulent research? Part 2; 2021.

     https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-part-2-a4475523b4e4

195. Sheldrick K. Data from Cadegiani et al contains unexplained patterns; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210922163759/https://kylesheldrick.blogspot.com/2021/08/data-from-cadegiani-et-al-contains.html

196. Izcovich A, Peiris S, Ragusa M, Tortosa F, Rada G, Aldighieri S, et al. Bias as a source of inconsistency in ivermectin trials for COVID-19: A systematic review. medRxiv 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.19.21262304

197. Ivermort. Dr Lenny Da Costa – the true story of ivermectin in India. Odysee; 2021.

     https://odysee.com/@ivermort:4/Dr-Lenny-Da-Costa---The-True-Story-of-Ivermectin-in-India:d

198. American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. Lenny Da Costa, MD; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210913092013/https://www.a4m.com/lenny-da-costa.html

199. Hope JR. India’s ivermectin blackout part III: the lesson of Kerala. Desert Review; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210823212200/https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indias-ivermectin-blackout---part-iiithe-lesson-of-kerala/article_ccecb97e-044e-11ec-9112-2b31ae87887a.html

200. Hope JR. India’s ivermectin blackout: part IV: Kerala’s vaccinated surge. Desert Review; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210901004955/https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indias-ivermectin-blackout---part-ivkeralas-vaccinated-surge/article_8a8c481c-09d3-11ec-a51c-fb063e1a3e3b.html

201. Philip S. Explained: what are the new lockdown relaxations and riders in Kerala?. Indian Express;

202. https://web.archive.org/web/20210827202359/https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/kerala-covid-19-lockdown-rules-guidelines-explained-7439694/

203. Widmer S. Ivermectin, a deworming drug, should not be used to treat COVID, health officials say.

     ABC News; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210902070339/https://abcnews.go.com/Health/ivermectin-deworming-drug-treat-covid-health-officials/story?id=79568887

204. Piller C, You J. Hidden conflicts? Pharma payments to FDA advisers after drug approvals spark ethical concerns. Science 2018. https://www.science.org/news/2018/07/hidden-conflicts-pharma-payments-fda-advisers-after-drug-approvals-spark-ethical

205. Powell TB. Mississippi officials warn against using anti-parasite drug to treat COVID amid uptick incalls to poison control. CBS News; 2021.

     https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mississippi-poison-control-anti-parasite-drug-covid/

206. Butler K. He was just trying to study COVID treatments. Ivermectin zealots sent hate mail callinghim a Nazi. Mother Jones; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210824141313/https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/ivermectin-hcq-fluvoxamine-covid-boulware/

207. Olson J. Controversial ivermectin added to University of Minnesota COVID-19 drug trial. StarTribune; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210522005013/https://www.startribune.com/controversial-ivermectin-added-to-university-of-minnesota-covid-19-drug-trial/600060016/

208. Mohan A, Tiwari P, Suri TM, Mittal S, Patel A, Jain A, et al. Single-dose oral ivermectin in mild and moderate COVID-19 (RIVET-COV): A single-centre randomized placebo-controlled trial. Journal ofInfection and Chemotherapy 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiac.2021.08.021

209. Stereomatch. r/ivermectin - Anatomy of a powermod hit (August 25, 2021 - 5pm EST). Reddit; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210829053306/https://www.reddit.com/r/ivermectin/comments/pdnodz/anatomy_of_a_powermod_hit_august_25_2021_5pm_est/

210. Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. FLCCC weekly update August 25, 2021 with Dr. Kory,Dr. Marik, and our new FLCCC clinical advisor Dr. Fl´avio Cadegiani. Odysee; 2021.

     https://odysee.com/FLCCC-WEBINAR-082521_FINAL_YouTube:747e21cd24fb97e64ee3a05a651ca7817cb54f2d

211. Cadegiani FA, McCoy J, Wambier CG, Goren A. Early antiandrogen therapy with dutasteridereduces viral shedding, inflammatory responses, and time-to-remission in males with COVID-19: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled interventional trial (EAT-DUTA AndroCoV trial –Biochemical). Cureus 2021. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.13047

212. Cadegiani FA, Wambier CG, Goren A. Spironolactone: an anti-androgenic and anti-hypertensive drug that may provide protection against the novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) induced acute respiratorydistress syndrome (ARDS) in COVID-19. Frontiers in Medicine 2020;7.

     https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2020.00453

213. Krolewiecki A, Lifschitz A, Moragas M, Travacio M, Valentini R, Alonso DF, et al. Corrigendum to Antiviral effect of high-dose ivermectin in adults with COVID-19: a proof-of-concept randomized trial [EClinicalMedicine 37 (2021) 100,959]. EClinicalMedicine 2021;39:101119.

     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101119

214. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC health advisory: rapid increase in ivermectin prescriptions and reports of severe illness associated with use of products containing ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210826223632/https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/pdf/CDC_HAN_449.pdf

215. Jackson J. Doctor claims he used ivermectin on thousands of COVID patients despite FDA warnings.

     Newsweek; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210826205051/https://www.newsweek.com/doctor-claim-she-used-ivermectin-thousands-covid-patients-despite-fda-warnings-1623441

216. Marchman T. Facebook’s ivermectin groups are unhinged and out of control. Vice; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210826153841/https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvzkjd/facebooks-ivermectin-groups-are-unhinged-and-out-of-control

217. Gault M. Are anti-vaxers really pooping themselves because of ivermectin?. Vice; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210827191900/https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7by4w/are-anti-vaxers-really-pooping-themselves-because-of-ivermectin

218. Colarossi N. Milo Yiannopoulos reports having COVID, shares pic of ivermectin: this Is not fun.

     Newsweek; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210828210032/https://www.newsweek.com/milo-yiannopoulos-reports-having-covid-shares-pic-ivermectin-this-not-fun-1624019

219. Landen X. GOP Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert draws applause for praising ivermectin as COVID treatment. Newsweek; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210828153855/https://www.newsweek.com/gop-texas-replouie-gohmert-draws-applause-praising-ivermectin-covid-treatment-1623960

220. Taliesin J. ’Don’t do it’: Dr. Fauci warns against using ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.

     Boston Globe Media Partners; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210829235730/https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2021/08/29/ivermectin-warnings-anthony-fauci-megan-ranney-fda/

221. Cohen J. Ivermectin, a 40-year old anti-parasitic now embedded in a Covid-19 culture war. Forbes;

222. https://web.archive.org/web/20210829160914/https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2021/08/29/ivermectin-a-40-year-old-antiparasitic-now-embedded-in-a-covid-19-culture-war/

223. Hutzler A. Ohio judge orders hospital to treat COVID patient with deworming drug ivermectin.

     Newsweek; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210830150843/https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-judgeorders-hospital-treat-covid-patient-deworming-drug-ivermectin-1624186

224. Marshall P. Doctor uses ivermectin as an alternative method to treating COVID-19 patient.

     Dayton247Now; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210830223252/https://dayton247now.com/news/local/doctor-uses-ivermectin-as-an-alternative-method-to-treating-covid-19-patient

225. Heinze S. Ivermectin: Wie das W¨urmermittel gegen Covid-19 wirken k¨onnte – und warum Fachleute trotzdem warnen. RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210910080631/https://www.rnd.de/gesundheit/ivermectin-gegen-corona-wie-das-wuermermittel-gegen-covid-19-wirken-koennte-fachleute-warnenMGIL5LD5NBGYHICHOYLL4OOXVU.html

226. Valerio F, McMillan P. Crushing COVID-19 in Honduras with Dr Fernando Valerio. YouTube; 2021.

     https://youtu.be/M6zlYhGsoqs

227. Omrani MA, Salehi-Abargouei A, Heydari B, Kermanshahi N, Joukar F, Aryanfar A. Effectiveness of ivermectin/doxycycline combination in COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. ResearchSquare 2021. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-858364/v1

228. Pfeiffer MB. ‘Get sicker’: anatomy of a failed policy. TrialSite News; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210831200813/https://trialsitenews.com/get-sickeranatomy-of-a-failed-policy/

229. Kory P. I think it is important to recognize which agency is truly conducting the war on IVM... andthat would be the NIH. Twitter; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210903200717/https://twitter.com/PierreKory/status/1432545707777527811

230. Alveflo M. Fler tar parasitmedicin mot corona trots avr˚adan. G¨oteborgs-Posten; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210831101930/http://www.gp.se/1.53839900

231. Abaluck J, Kwong LH, Styczynski A, Haque A, Kabir A, Bates-Jeffries E, et al. The impact of community masking on COVID-19: a cluster-randomized trial in Bangladesh. Discussion Papers2021;1086. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/egcenter-discussion-paper-series/1086

232. Salzman S. COVID-19 live updates: Medical, pharmaceutical associations call for ’immediate’ end of prescribing deworming drug ivermectin for COVID-19. ABC News; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210902003433/https://abcnews.go.com/Health/liveupdates/coronavirus-delta-variant-latest-news/?id=79720727

233. Knowles H, Gowen A, Mark J. Doctors dismayed by patients who fear coronavirus vaccines but clamor for unproven ivermectin. Washington Post; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210904101931/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/01/ivermectin-covid-treatment/

234. Irvin M, Louden M. UMN receives USD 1.5 million for COVID-19 treatment trial. Minnesota Daily;

235. https://web.archive.org/web/20210618072754/https://mndaily.com/267942/news/umnreceives-1-5-million-for-covid-19-treatment-trial/

236. Mendez A. U of M Medical School receives USD 1.5M to launch nation’s first ivermectin COVID-19treatment clinical trial; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210528174016/https://med.umn.edu/news-events/u-m-medical-school-receives-15m-launch-nation%E2%80%99sfirst-ivermectin-covid-19-treatment-clinical-trial

237. Keehner J, Horton LE, Binkin NJ, Laurent LC, Pride D, Longhurst CA, et al. Resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Highly Vaccinated Health System Workforce. New England Journal ofMedicine 2021. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmc2112981

238. Ogle K. Patients overdosing on ivermectin backing up rural Oklahoma hospitals, ambulances. KFOR;2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210903232205/https://kfor.com/news/local/patients-overdosing-on-ivermectin-backing-up-rural-oklahoma-hospitals-ambulances/

239. SNM_2_0. r/ivermectinuncut subreddit (created on August 26, 2021). Reddit; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210903231213/https://www.reddit.com/r/ivermectinuncut/

240. Earl W. Joe Rogan announces he has COVID. Variety; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210901212527/https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/joerogan-covid-1235054176/

241. Press-Reynolds K, Michelson A. Spotify airs Joe Rogan podcast touting ivermectin as part of his COVID-19 treatment, despite the FDA calling it ’dangerous’. Business Insider 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210908220332/https://www.businessinsider.com/joerogan-experience-ivermectin-spotify-covid19-treatment-19-2021-9

242. Romo V. Joe Rogan says he has COVID-19 and has taken the drug ivermectin. NPR; 2021.

     https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033485152/joe-rogan-covid-ivermectin

243. Samano S. Joe Rogan insists ivermectin helped him recover from COVID-19: ’I got better pretty quick, b*tch’. USA Today; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210908190528/https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2021/09/joe-rogan-credits-ivermectin-quick-covid-19-recovery

244. Flegenheimer M. Joe Rogan is too big to cancel. New York Times; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210701150506/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/business/joe-rogan.html

245. Bryant A, Lawrie TA, Fordham EJ. Ivermectin for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection:a systematic review, meta-analysis, and trial sequential analysis to inform clinical guidelines.

     American Journal of Therapeutics, 28, e434–e460, July 2021. American Journal of Therapeutics2021;28(5):e573-6. https://doi.org/10.1097/mjt.0000000000001442

246. Due˜nas-Gonz´alez A, Ju´arez-Rodr´ıguez M. Ivermectin: potential repurposing of a versatile antiparasitic as a novel anticancer. In: Repurposed Drugs for Cancer IntechOpen; 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99813

247. Jackson J. Patients overdosing on ivermectin are clogging Oklahoma ERs: doctor. Newsweek; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210902211104/https://www.newsweek.com/patients-overdosing-ivermectin-are-clogging-oklahoma-ers-doctor-1625631

248. Dickson E. How Joe Rogan became a cheerleader for ivermectin. Rolling Stone; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210902222937/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culturefeatures/joe-rogan-covid19-misinformation-ivermectin-spotify-podcast-1219976/

249. M¨akel¨a A. P¨aivittyv¨a seuranta: 2.9.2021 5:30 Yhdysvaltain suosituimman podcastin juontaja JoeRogan kertoo hoitavansa koronaa sy¨om¨all¨a hevosille tarkoitettua matol¨a¨akett¨a, l¨a¨akeviranomaisetvaroittaneet l¨a¨akkeest¨a. Helsingin Sanomat; 2021.

     https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000008163863.html

250. M¨akel¨a A. Yhdysvaltain suosituimman podcastin juontaja Joe Rogan kertoo hoitavansa koronaasy¨om¨all¨a hevosille tarkoitettua matol¨a¨akett¨a. Ilta-Sanomat; 2021.

     https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000008235037.html

251. M¨akel¨a A. Yhdysvaltain suosituimman podcastin juontaja Joe Rogan kertoo hoitavansa koronaasy¨om¨all¨a hevosille tarkoitettua matol¨a¨akett¨a – l¨a¨akeviranomainen on varoittanut aineesta. L¨ansi-Savo;

252. https://web.archive.org/web/20210902072439/https://www.lansisavo.fi/uutissuomalainen/4278294

253. Nyk¨anen M. Huippusuosittu Spotify-juontaja Joe Rogan k¨aytti matol¨a¨akett¨a koronaan, USA:ntartuntatautivirastolta kova varoitus – t¨ast¨a on kyse. Iltalehti; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210902125917/https://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/a/41b7230c-f9e3-46e0-97be-c70418a1a317

254. Husain J. Ivermectin tablets for COVID-19: Stop using it as no evidence yet, experts warn. DailyMirror; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210902083044/https://www.dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Ivermectin-tablets-for-COVID-19-Stop-using-it-as-no-evidence-yet-experts-warn/342-219498

255. Marik PE, Kory P. Ivermectin: a reanalysis of the data. American Journal of Therapeutics 2021;28(5):e579-80. https://doi.org/10.1097/mjt.0000000000001443

256. Neil M, Fenton N. Bayesian hypothesis testing and hierarchical modeling of ivermectin effectiveness.

     American Journal of Therapeutics 2021;28(5):e576-9.

     https://doi.org/10.1097/mjt.0000000000001450

257. Kreuzberger N, Hirsch C, Chai KL, Tomlinson E, Khosravi Z, Popp M, et al.

     SARS-CoV-2-neutralising monoclonal antibodies for treatment of COVID-19. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2021;2021(9). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd013825.pub2

258. de Lucena Alves CP, de Deus Barreto Segundo J, da Costa GG, Pereira-Cenci T, Lima KC, Demarco FF, et al. How a few poorly designed COVID-19 studies may have contributed to misinformation in Brazil: the case for evidence-based communication of science. BMJ Open Science 2021;5(1):e100202.

     https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjos-2021-100202

259. Role of ivermectin in patients hospitalized with COVID-19: a systematic review of literature.

     Advances in Respiratory Medicine 2021;89(4):413-8. https://doi.org/10.5603/ARM.a2021.0088

260. Lee SM, Bensinger K. Ivermectin is anti-vaxxers’ latest COVID drug of choice. A study promoting it has suspect data. BuzzFeed News; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210902223011/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/ivermectin-covid-study-suspect-data

261. Okogbenin SA, Erameh CO, Egbuta OC, Iraoyah KO, Onyebujoh JT, Erohubie CE, et al. Clinical characteristics, treatment modalities and outcome of coronavirus disease 2019 patients treated at this day dome isolation and treatment centre, federal capital territory Abuja, Nigeria. NigerianPostgraduate Medical Journal 2021;28(2):81-7

262. Bryant A, Lawrie TA, Fordham E. Efficacy of ivermectin in Covid-19. OSF Preprints 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/peqcj

263. Carvallo H, Hirsch R, Alkis P, Contreras V. Study of the efficacy and safety of topical ivermectin +iota-carrageenan in the prophylaxis against COVID-19 in health personnel. Journal of Biomedical Research and Clinical Investigation 2020;2(1). https://doi.org/10.31546/2633-8653.1007

264. Meyerowitz-Katz G. Is ivermectin for Covid-19 based on fraudulent research? Part 3; 2021.

     /https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-part-3-5066aa6819b3

265. Don’t use ivermectin to treat Covid-19 – Sahpra says its stance is aligned with the US FDA.

     News24Wire; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210903143829/https://www.polity.org.za/article/dont-use-ivermectin-to-treat-covid-19-- -sahpra-saysits-stance-is-aligned-with-the-us-fda-2021-09-03

266. Teh C. Oklahoma’s ERs are so backed up with people overdosing on ivermectin, gunshot victims are having to wait to be treated. Yahoo News; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210903081435/https://news.yahoo.com/oklahomas-ersbacked-people-overdosing-053822589.html

267. Wade P. Gunshot victims left waiting as horse dewormer overdoses overwhelm Oklahoma hospitals, doctor says. Rolling Stone; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210903231939/https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/gunshot-victims-horse-dewormer-ivermectin-oklahoma-hospitals-covid-1220608/

268. Martin Pengelly and agencies. Oklahoma hospitals deluged by ivermectin overdoses, doctor says.

     Guardian; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210904134537/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/04/oklahoma-doctor-ivermectin-covid-coronavirus

269. Ivermectin: Oklahoma doctor warns against using unproven Covid drug. BBC News; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210904201222/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada58449876

270. Northeastern Health System Sequoyah. Message from the administration of Northeastern HealthSystem - Sequoyah. Facebook; 2021.

     https://www.facebook.com/NHSSequoyah/posts/4192195714168045

271. Northeastern Health System Sequoyah. About NHS Sequoyah; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210908092423/https://nhssequoyah.com/about/

272. Ivermectin overdose NOT an issue at Sallisaw emergency room or hospital. KXMX Local News; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210905000228/https://www.kxmx.com/post/ivermectin-overdose-not-an-issue-at-sallisaw-emergency-room-or-hospital

273. Romo V. Poison control centers are fielding a surge of ivermectin overdose calls. NPR; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210908110435/https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviruslive-updates/2021/09/04/1034217306/ivermectin-overdose-exposure-cases-poison-control-centers

274. American Association of Poison Control Centers. National Poison Data System (NPDS) bulletinCOVID-19 (ivermectin), 1/1/21-8/31/21; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210907213238/https://piper.filecamp.com/uniq/ZO3aGrYGXdIUhiJ7.pdf

275. Fact check – the U.S. prescribes ivermectin to refugees for parasitic worms, not COVID-19. Reuters;

276. https://web.archive.org/web/20210904160720/https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-afghanistan-refugees-idUSL1N2Q605Q

277. Associated Press. Efforts grow to stamp out use of parasite drug ivermectin for COVID-19 in US.

     Indian Express; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210904051501/https://indianexpress.com/article/world/efforts-grow-to-stamp-out-use-of-parasite-drug-ivermectin-for-covid-19-in-us-7488257/

278. Martin Pengelly and agencies. Oklahoma hospitals deluged by ivermectin overdoses, doctor says (amended on Sep 5, 2021). Guardian; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210905195658/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/04/oklahoma-doctor-ivermectin-covid-coronavirus

279. Dwyer C. Fact check: are U.S. hospitals being overrun by ivermectin patients as reported by the left?.

     Shore News Network; 2021. https://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2021/09/05/fact-check-are-us-hospitals-being-overrun-by-ivermectin-patients-as-reported-by-the-left/

280. Buonfrate D, Chesini F, Martini D, Roncaglioni MC, Fernandez MLO, Alvisi MF, et al. High dose ivermectin for the early treatment of COVID-19 (COVIER study): a randomised, double-blind,multicentre, phase II, dose-finding, proof of concept clinical trial. SSRN Electronic Journal 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3918289

281. Alexander S. Too good to check: a play in three acts. Astral Codex Ten; 2021.

     https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-a-play-in-three

282. Alexander S. About Astral Codex Ten. Astral Codex Ten; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210907131333/https://astralcodexten.substack.com/about

283. Jones S. Oklahoma Doctor At Center Of Viral Ivermectin Story Says Report Is Wrong. News On 6;

284. https://web.archive.org/web/20210907003032/https://www.newson6.com/story/6136ad349daa7c0c0b36d064/oklahoma-doctor-at-center-of-viral-ivermectin-story-says-report-is-wrong

285. Soave R. The media fell for a viral hoax about ivermectin overdoses straining rural hospitals. Reason;

286. https://web.archive.org/web/20210906202127/https://reason.com/2021/09/06/ivermectin-overdoses-oklahoma-hospitals-rolling-stone-hoax/

287. Associated Press. Correction: virus outbreak-Mississippi story. SFGate; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210906213700/https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Health-Dept-Stop-taking-livestock-medicine-to-16405982.php

288. Davie T. Trusted News Initiative (TNI) to combat spread of harmful vaccine disinformation and announces major research project. BBC Media Centre; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210516215901/https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2020/trusted-news-initiative-vaccine-disinformation

289. Stelloh T. Judge says hospital cannot be forced to administer ivermectin, reversing earlier decision.

     Yahoo News; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910070514/https://news.yahoo.com/judge-says-hospital-cannot-forced-001100148.html

290. Knight C. Judge rules hospital cannot be forced to give ivermectin. Cincinnati Enquirer; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210910070546/https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/09/06/judge-rules-hospital-cannot-forced-give-ivermectin/5746518001/

291. H¨uttemann D. Off-Label-Gebrauch: US-Apothekerverband warnt vor Ivermectin als Covid-19.

     Pharmazeutische Zeitung; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210910082500/https://www.pharmazeutischezeitung.de/us-apothekerverband-warnt-vor-ivermectin-als-covid-19-mittel-127836/

292. Wilson C. Two Oklahoma hospitals differ on doctor’s claims over ivermectin overdoses. FOX25/KOKH; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210906211632/https://okcfox.com/news/local/two-oklahoma-hospitals-differ-on-doctors-claims-over-ivermectin-overdoses

293. Dale D. Here’s a statement from a hospital that Oklahoma doctor is affiliated with. Twitter; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210908115302/https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1434991544306704395

294. Dale D. Fact-checking the misinformation about Oklahoma hospitals and ivermectin. CNN; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210907235501/https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/07/politics/fact-check-oklahoma-ivermectin-story/index.html

295. Scherndl G. Wurmmittel f¨ur Pferde taugt nicht zur Corona-Bek¨ampfung. derStandard; 2021.

     https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000129445304/wurmmittel-fuer-pferde-taugt-nicht-zur-corona-bekaempfung

296. Utsch S. Entwurmungsmittel Ivermectin gegen Corona: Menschen sind keine Pferde.... Bild der Frau;

297. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910081243/https://www.bildderfrau.de/gesundheit/krankheiten/article228873353/Kraetze-Medikamentivermectin-gegen-Coronavirus-sars-cov-2.html

298. Nilsson J. Amerikaner tar h¨astmedicin mot covid-19. Svenska Dagbladet; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210907173853/https://www.svd.se/amerikaner-tarhastmedicin-mot-covid-19

299. Rogan J. Joe’s COVID experience, CNN’s ivermectin claims. YouTube; 2021.

     https://youtu.be/3O_7O9_nV10

300. Schwartz B. Chinese exile Guo Wengui uses misinformation network to push unproven drugs to treatCovid. CNBC; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210907182324/https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/07/guo-wengui-pushes-ivermectin-misinformation-network.html

301. Cruciani M, Pati I, Masiello F, Malena M, Pupella S, Angelis VD. Ivermectin for prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Diagnostics 2021;11(9):1645.

     https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics11091645

302. Hill A. Scientists must be protected from anti-vaxxer abuse. Guardian; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210908173824/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/08/scientists-must-be-protected-from-anti-vaxxer-abuse

303. Rogers A. Better data on ivermectin is finally on its way. Wired; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210908115839/https://www.wired.com/story/better-dataon-ivermectin-is-finally-on-its-way/

304. Taylor J. Melbourne clinic offers ivermectin despite it not being approved as a Covid treatment.

     Guardian; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210908061830/https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/08/melbourne-clinic-offers-ivermectin-despite-it-not-being-approved-as-a-covid-treatment

305. Bossche GV. The last post; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910070333/https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/the-last-post

306. Bossche GV. Guinea – The Ebola vaccine trial and the reported interim results. August 26th, 2015;

307. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910070333/https://37b32f5a-6ed9-4d6d-b3e15ec648ad9ed9.filesusr.co/ugd/28d8fe_485cd4e01c4f41219253ff69cd8d761e.pdf

308. Hill A. Misleading information from the BIRD group. Twitter; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210911091556/https://twitter.com/DrAndrewHill/status/1436012597627740163

309. Abreu JL. Meta-analysis of randomized trials of ivermectin to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection. A review.

     YouTube; 2021. https://youtu.be/nSw7a7HCXv0

310. Hill A. More misleading information from the BIRD group misquoting our research. Twitter; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210911091607/https://twitter.com/DrAndrewHill/status/1436013070866919427

311. Rogan J. The horse dewormer narrative. YouTube; 2021. https://youtu.be/HI5gtJ4ObpQ

312. Dyer O. Covid-19: Hospital may cease giving patient ivermectin, US court rules, as prescriptions soar.

     BMJ 2021:n2228. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2228

313. British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group. Ivermectin will certainly be in the history books. Twitter; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910192936/https://twitter.com/BIRDGroupUK/status/1436411358640283677

314. Ivermectin for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and trial sequential analysis to inform clinical guidelines. Altmetric; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210912152744/https://wolterskluwer.altmetric.com/details/107884053

315. Hill A. Survival benefit of ivermectin disappears when only trials at low risk of bias are analysed.

     Twitter; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210911103925/https://twitter.com/DrAndrewHill/status/1436267068257669120

316. Capuzzo M. Pierre Kory responds to critics, Hollywood style. RESCUE with Michael Capuzzo; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210910174608/https://rescue.substack.com/p/pierrekory-responds-to-critics-hollywood

317. Walsh M. Opinion: ivermectin II: cons and pros. Your Observer; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210912083312/https://www.yourobserver.com/article/opinion-ivermetcin-ii-cons-and-pros

318. Walsh M. Mainstream publisher responds to ivermectin critics who unload on his newspapers.

     RESCUE with Michael Capuzzo; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210911100525/https://rescue.substack.com/p/mainstream-publisher-responds-to

319. Dutt A. Ivermectin doesn’t cut viral load in Covid-19 patients, AIIMS study shows. HindustanTimes; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910123103/https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/ivermectin-doesn-t-cut-viral-load-in-covid-19-patients-aiims-study-shows-101631213215515.html

320. Yim P. Grotesque conflicts of interest on NIH ivermectin non-recommendation. TrialSite News; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210913065659/https://trialsitenews.com/grotesque- conflicts-of-interest-on-nih-ivermectin-non-recommendation/

321. Kuriakose S. Team 2 agenda for tomorrow, 1/6/21. 21-01577-FOIA – Responsive Records. USNational Institutes of Health; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210913072306/https://doc-0s-60-docs.googleusercontent.

     com/docs/securesc/ha0ro937gcuc7l7deffksulhg5h7mbp1/ukuu0aqk0juooo0fb67454knra9b7dsb/1631517750000/00404752976562301548/*/18OfEy2byeYQBxY_xRuQjgmwtRS8m23zu?e=download

322. Naggie S. ACTIV-6: COVID-19 study of repurposed medications. ClinicalTrials.gov; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210513202502/https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04885530

323. Australia’s TGA Bans GPs from prescribing ivermectin – cites interruption with vaccination as clear factor. TrialSite News; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210911153701/https://trialsitenews.com/australias-tga-bans-gps-from-prescribing-ivermectin-citesinterruption-with-vaccination-as-clear-factor/

324. Schedules – International Covid Summit Live; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210912123707/https://internationalcovidsummitlive.com/schedules/

325. Lacerda R. International Covid Summit. YouTube; 2021. https://youtu.be/BjHKdhONivc

326. McCullough PA, Alexander PE, Armstrong R, Arvinte C, Bain AF, Bartlett RP, et al. Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19). Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine 2020;21(4):517.

     https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm.2020.04.264

327. Morgenstern J, Redondo JN, Le´on AD, Canela JM, Castro NT, Tavares J, et al. The use of compassionate ivermectin in the management of symptomatic outpatients and hospitalized patients with clinical diagnosis of Covid-19 at the Centro Medico Bournigal and at the Centro Medico PuntaCana, Grupo Rescue, Dominican Republic, from May 1 to August 10, 2020. J Clin Trials 2020;11(59).

     https://www.longdom.org/open-access/the-use-of-compassionate-ivermectin-in-the-management-of-symptomatic-outpatients-and-hospitalized-patients-with-clinical.pdf

328. Use of ivermectin reduces risk of Covid disease. Dominican Today; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210915063347/https://dominicantoday.com/dr/covid19/2021/09/13/use-of-ivermectin-reduces-risk-of-covid-disease/

329. Dickson E. Anti-vaxxers are now gargling iodine to prevent Covid-19. Rolling Stones; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210914211156/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/betadine-anti-vaxxer-covid-treatment-iodine-1225438/

330. Robins-Early N. Ivermectin frenzy: the advocates, anti-vaxxers and telehealth companies driving demand. Guardian; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210916102352/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/13/ivermectin-treatment-covid-19-anti-vaxxers-advocates

331. Breland A. How Lin Wood and his QAnon fans tried to force a hospital to use ivermectin. MotherJones; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210913222800/https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/09/lin-wood-veronica-wolski-ivermectin/

332. Ivermectin: Cochrane’s most talked about review so far, ever. Why?. Cochrane Collaboration; 2021.

     https://www.cochrane.org/news/ivermectin-cochranes-most-talked-about-review-so-farever-why

333. Menichella M. Tutto quello che non vi dicono sulle cure domiciliari precoci per il Covid-19 (e perch´e lofanno). Fondazione David Hume; 2021. https://www.fondazionehume.it/societa/tutto-quelloche-non-vi-dicono-sulle-cure-domiciliari-precoci-per-il-covid-19-e-perche-lo-fanno/

334. Suter F, Consolaro E, Pedroni S, Moroni C, Past`o E, Paganini MV, et al. A simple, home-therapy algorithm to prevent hospitalisation for COVID-19 patients: A retrospective observational matched-cohort study. EClinicalMedicine 2021;37:100941.

     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.100941

335. Talwar N, Tripathi N, Chugh K. Ivermectin poisoning - report of successful management. IndianPediatrics 2021;58(9):893–894. https://www.indianpediatrics.net/sep2021/893.pdf

336. Effinger A. A progressive biologist from Portland is one of the nation’s leading advocates for ivermectin. Willamette Week; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210915135717/https://www.wweek.com/news/2021/09/15/a-progressive-biologist-from-portland-is-one-of-the-nations-leading-advocates-for-ivermectin/

337. Boretti A. Quercetin Supplementation and COVID-19. Natural Product Communications2021;16(9):1934578X2110427. https://doi.org/10.1177/1934578x211042763

338. Fenton N, Neil M, Mclachlan S. Paradoxes in the reporting of Covid19 vaccine effectiveness: why current studies (for or against vaccination) cannot be trusted and what we can do about it.

     ResearchGate 2021. http://rgdoi.net/10.13140/RG.2.2.32655.30886

339. Cheng Q, Chen J, Jia Q, Fang Z, Zhao G. Efficacy and safety of current medications for treating severe and non-severe COVID-19 patients: an updated network meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials. Aging 2021. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203522

340. Malhotra R. Indian Bar Association vs WHO – Adv. Dipali Ojha with Rajiv Malhotra. YouTube;

341. https://youtu.be/eD9BYCYwsUI

342. O’Rourke G. COVID-19 group says it’s instructed 200 Aussie doctors on prescribing ivermectin.

     AusDoc; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210917123001/https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/covid19-group-says-its-instructed-200-aussie-doctors-prescribing-ivermectin

343. Singh S, Diwaker A, Singh BP, Singh RK. Nutritional immunity, zinc sufficiency, and COVID-19 mortality in socially similar European populations. Frontiers in Immunology 2021;12.

     https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2021.699389

344. Gurung AB, Ali MA, Lee J, Farah MA, Al-Anazi KM, Sami H. Molecular modelling studies unveil potential binding sites on human serum albumin for selected experimental and in silico COVID-19 drug candidate molecules. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2021.09.042

345. Karale S, Bansal V, Makadia J, Tayyeb M, Khan H, Ghanta SS, et al. A meta-analysis of mortality need for ICU admission, use of mechanical ventilation and adverse effects with ivermectin use inCOVID-19 patients. medRxiv 2021. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.30.21256415

346. Hirsch RR, Carvallo HE. Ivermectin as prophylaxis against COVID-19 retrospective cases evaluation.

     Microbiol Infect Dis 2020;4(4):1-8. https://scivisionpub.com/pdfs/ivermectin-as-prophylaxis-against-covid19-retrospective-cases-evaluation-1458.pdf

347. Carvallo H, Hirsch R, Farinella ME. Safety and efficacy of the combined use of ivermectin dexamethasone, enoxaparin and aspirin against COVID 19. medRxiv 2020.

     https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.10.20191619

348. Piper K. The dubious rise of ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment, explained. Vox; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210917140723/https://www.vox.com/futureperfect/22663127/ivermectin-covid-treatments-vaccines-evidence

349. Brueck H. 2 fringe doctors created the myth that ivermectin is a ’miracle cure’ for COVID-19 —whipping up false hope that could have deadly consequences. Business Insider; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210917123439/https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ivermectin-being-used-treat-covid-2-doctors-leading-charge-2021-9

350. Turkia M. The history of methylprednisolone, ascorbic acid, thiamine, and heparin protocol andI-MASK+ ivermectin protocol for COVID-19. Cureus 2020.

     https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.12403

351. Seheult R. COVID vaccine myths, questions, and rumors with Rhonda Patrick and Roger Seheult.

     YouTube; 2021. https://youtu.be/pp-nPZETLTo

352. 31 districts of Uttar Pradesh are COVID free, says state govt. ANI; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210920124842/https://www.aninews.in/news/national/generalnews/31-districts-of-uttar-pradesh-are-covid-free-says-state-govt20210920104122/

353. Milman O. US horse owners face ivermectin shortage as humans chase unproven Covid ‘cure’.

     Guardian; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210920143849/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/20/ivermectin-shortage-horse-owners-covid

354. Bolsonaro JM. Brazil - President addresses General Debate, 76th session. United Nations; 2021.

     https://youtu.be/NqMv-9OCc-A?t=686

355. Timmer J. The anonymous meta-analysis that’s convincing people to use ivermectin. Ars Technica;

356. https://web.archive.org/web/20210921111152/https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/the-anonymous-meta-analysis-thats-convincing-people-to-use-ivermectin/

357. Lawrence JM, Meyerowitz-Katz G, Heathers JAJ, Brown NJL, Sheldrick KA. The lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are inherently unreliable. Nature Medicine

358. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01535-y

359. FLCCC Alliance. FLCCC weekly update September 22, 2021 - MATH+ Protocol Updates; 2021.

     https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/FLCCC-Weekly_Update092221_MATH+:0

360. Campbell J. Home ivermectin based kits in India; 2021. https://youtu.be/eO9cjy3Rydc

361. World Health Organization. Uttar Pradesh going the last mile to stop COVID-19; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210929091019/https://www.who.int/india/news/featurestories/detail/uttar-pradesh-going-the-last-mile-to-stop-covid-19

362. Mayer MA, Krolewiecki A, Ferrero A, Bocchio M, Barbero J, Miguel M, et al.. Safety and efficacy of a MEURI Program for the use of high dose ivermectin in COVID-19 patients. Zenodo; 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5525362

363. CovidAnalysis. Analysis of: Safety and efficacy of a MEURI Program for the use of high dose ivermectin in COVID-19 patients; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210930115536/https://c19ivermectin.com/mayer.html

364. World Council for Health. World Council for Health launches with publication of at-home Covid treatment guide; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210923161041/https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/launch-with-publication-of-at-home-treatment-guide/

365. World Council for Health. Early Covid-19 treatment guidelines: a practical approach for home-based care for healthy families; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210923160456/https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/WCH_Covid-19-At-Home-Treatment-Guide-For-Healthy-Individuals_1.pdf

366. Indian Council of Medical Research COVID-19 National Task Force. Clinical guidance for management of adult COVID-19 patients. September 23, 2021; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210924185552/https://www.icmr.gov.in/pdf/covid/techdoc/COVID_Management_Algorithm_23092021.pdf

367. Indian Council of Medical Research COVID-19 National Task Force. Clinical guidance for management of adult COVID-19 patients. April 22, 2021; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210422171548/https://www.icmr.gov.in/pdf/covid/techdoc/COVID19_Management_Algorithm_22042021_v1.pdf

368. Indian Council of Medical Research COVID-19 National Task Force. COVID-19 timeline; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210925072138/https://www.icmr.gov.in/COVIDTimeline/cindex.html

369. ICMR drops Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine drugs from Covid treatment. Times of India; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210924082513/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/icmr-drops-ivermectin-hydroxychloroquine-drugs-from-covid-treatment/articleshow/86475906.cms

370. Gore D. Posts spread dubious claim about ivermectin and male fertility. FactCheck.org; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210926065139/https://www.factcheck.org/2021/09/posts-spread-dubious-claim-about-ivermectin-and-male-fertility/

371. Coulehan E. Ivermectin causes sterilization in 85 percent of men, study finds. KTSM.com; 2021.

     http://web.archive.org/web/20210909021409/https://www.ktsm.com/news/localnews/ivermectin-causes-sterilization-in-85-percent-of-men-study-finds/

372. Robins-Early N. Desperation, misinformation: how the ivermectin craze spread across the world.

     Guardian; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210924102351/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/24/ivermectin-covid-peru-misinformation

373. Davey M. Fraudulent ivermectin studies open up new battleground between science and misinformation. Guardian; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210924201336/https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/25/fraudulent-ivermectin-studies-open-up-new-battleground-between-science-and-misinformation

374. Binder M. How ivermectin became polarized on social media. Mashable; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210924204202/https://mashable.com/article/ivermectin-covid-19-social-media-polarization

375. Marik PE, Iglesias J, Varon J, Kory P. A scoping review of the pathophysiology of COVID-19.

     International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology 2021;35:20587384211048026.

     https://doi.org/10.1177/20587384211048026

376. Weng Z, Zhang B, Asadi S, Sismanopoulos N, Butcher A, Fu X, et al. Quercetin is more effective than cromolyn in blocking human mast cell cytokine release and inhibits contact dermatitis and photosensitivity in humans. PLoS ONE 2012;7(3):e33805.

     https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033805

377. McMillan P, Bossche GV, Malone R. Meeting of the COVID-19 Giants with Geert Vanden Bossche and Robert Malone MD. YouTube; 2021. https://youtu.be/qP31cfD3YOY

378. Lukpat A. New Mexico health officials link misuse of ivermectin to two Covid-19 deaths. New YorkTimes; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210926145005/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/26/us/new-mexico-health-officials-link-misuse-of-ivermectin-to-two-covid-19-deaths.html

379. Ambani A, Marik PE, McCullough PA. New Horizons: Dr Paul E Marik & Dr Peter A McCullough.

     YouTube; 2021. https://youtu.be/zZah_bT9A-k

380. International Alliance of Physicians and Medical Scientists. Physicians declaration – Global Covid Summit – Rome, Italy; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210928113707/https://doctorsandscientistsdeclaration.org/

381. Deng J, Zhou F, Ali S, Heybati K, Hou W, Huang E, et al. Efficacy and safety of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. QJM: An International Journal of Medicine 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/hcab247

382. Barkati S, Greenaway C, Libman MD. Strongyloidiasis in immunocompromised migrants to non-endemic countries in the era of COVID-19: What is the role for presumptive ivermectin? Journal of Travel Medicine 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taab155

383. Zhang C, Jin H, Wen YF, Yin G. Efficacy of COVID-19 treatments: a Bayesian network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Frontiers in Public Health 2021;9.

     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.729559

384. Alba D. Facebook groups promoting ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment continue to flourish. NewYork Times; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210928090822/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/technology/facebook-ivermectin-coronavirus-misinformation.html

385. Cardwell K, Murchu EO, Byrne P, Broderick N, Walsh KA, O'Neill SM, et al. Pharmacologicalinterventions to prevent Covid-19 disease: a rapid review. Reviews in Medical Virology 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1002/rmv.2299

386. Budhiraja S et al . Secondary infections modify the overall course of hospitalized COVID-19 patients: a retrospective study from a network of hospitals across North India. medRxiv 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.27.21264070

387. Szalinski C. Fringe doctors’ groups promote ivermectin for COVID despite a lack of evidence.

     Scientific American; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210929213229/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fringe-doctors-groups-promote-ivermectin-for-covid-despite-a-lack-of-evidence/

388. King A. Ivermectin debacle exposes flaws in meta-analysis methodology. Chemistry World; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210929215056/https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ivermectin-debacle-exposes-flaws-in-meta-analysis-methodology/4014477.article

389. Coleman J. Ivermectin disinformation leads to new kinds of chaos. The Hill; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210929104821/https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/574397-ivermectin-disinformation-leads-to-new-kinds-of-chaos

390. Schaffer AL, Henry D, Zoega H, Elliott J, Pearson SA. Changes in dispensing of medicines proposed for re-purposing in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. medRxiv 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.26.21264150

391. Jordan V. Coronavirus (COVID-19): does ivermectin prevent transmission or aid in the treatment ofCOVID-19? Journal of Primary Health Care 2021;13(3):287-8. https://doi.org/10.1071/HC19563

392. Karvanen J. Do-search is the most general tool available for causal effect identification. Twitter; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210913202138/https://twitter.com/JuhaKarvanen/status/1432244653357740033

393. Every-Palmer S, Howick J. How evidence-based medicine is failing due to biased trials and selective publication. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 2014;20(6):908-14.

     https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.12147

394. Anjum RL. What is the guidelines challenge? The CauseHealth perspective. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 2018;24(5):1127-31. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.12950

395. Martini C. What “evidence” in Evidence-Based Medicine? Topoi 2020;40(2):299-305.

     https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-020-09703-4

396. Motoboi. Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable. HackerNews; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210923112927/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28617058

397. Choudhury MIM, Shabnam N, Ahsan T, Kabir MS, Khan RM, Ahsan SMA. Effect of 1% povidone iodine mouthwash/gargle, nasal and eye drop in COVID. Bioresearch Communications 2021;7(1).

     https://www.bioresearchcommunications.com/index.php/brc/article/view/176/159

398. Guenezan J, Garcia M, Strasters D, Jousselin C, L´evˆeque N, Frasca D, et al. Povidone iodine mouthwash gargle, and nasal spray to reduce nasopharyngeal viral load in patients with COVID-19.

     JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery 2021;147(4):400.

     https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaoto.2020.5490

399. Arefin MK, Rumi SKNF, Uddin AKMN, Banu SS, Khan M, Kaiser A, et al. Virucidal effect of povidone iodine on COVID-19 in the nasopharynx: an open-label randomized clinical trial. IndianJournal of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1007/s12070-021-02616-7

400. Elzein R, Abdel-Sater F, Fakhreddine S, Hanna PA, Feghali R, Hamad H, et al. In vivo evaluation of the virucidal efficacy of chlorhexidine and povidone-iodine mouthwashes against salivarySARS-CoV-2. A randomized-controlled clinical trial. Journal of Evidence Based Dental Practice2021;21(3):101584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebdp.2021.101584

401. Arefin MK. Povidone iodine (PVP-I) oro-nasal spray: an effective shield for COVID-19 protection for health care worker (HCW), for all. Indian Journal of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery 2021.

     https://doi.org/10.1007/s12070-021-02525-9

402. Khan MM, Parab SR, Paranjape M. Repurposing 0.5% povidone iodine solution in otorhinolaryngology practice in Covid 19 pandemic. American Journal of Otolaryngology 2020;41(5):102618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjoto.2020.102618

403. CovidAnalysis. Database of all povidone-iodine COVID-19 studies; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210930172718/https://c19pvpi.com/

404. US National Institutes of Health. Financial disclosure – COVID-19 treatment guidelines; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210323022912/https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/panel-financial-disclosure/

405. Merck & Co/MSD. Merck statement on ivermectin use during the COVID-19 pandemic; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210204172659/https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

406. Merck & Co/MSD. Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck announce preliminary findings from a phase 2a trial of investigational COVID-19 therapeutic molnupiravir; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210306090045/https://www.merck.com/news/ridgebackbiotherapeutics-and-merck-announce-preliminary-findings-from-a-phase-2a-trial-of-investigational-covid-19-therapeutic-molnupiravir/

407. Hackethal V. How molnupiravir moved to the head of the ’COVID pill’ pack. MedPage Today; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210428230545/https://www.medpagetoday.com/specialreports/exclusives/92323

408. Merck & Co/MSD. Amid humanitarian crisis in India, Merck announces voluntary licensing agreements with five indian generics manufacturers to accelerate and expand global access tomolnupiravir, an investigational oral therapeutic for the treatment of COVID-19; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210510103733/https://www.merck.com/news/amid-humanitarian-crisis-in-india-merck-announces-voluntary-licensing-agreements-with-five-indian-generics-manufacturers-to-accelerate-and-expand-global-access-to-molnupiravir-an-investigational-ora/

409. McDermid B. U.S. signs USD 1.2 bln deal for 1.7 mln courses of Merck’s experimental COVID-19drug. Reuters; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210609150930/https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/merck-says-us-govt-buy-about-17-mln-courses-cos-covid-19-drug-2021-06-09/

410. Vir Biotechnology. Mission and leadership of Vir Biotechnology; 2021. https://www.vir.bio/about/

411. The Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV). US National Institutes of Health; 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210913184926/https://www.nih.gov/research-training/medical-research-initiatives/activ

412. Langreth R. Why biotech investing is like gambling in Vegas. Forbes; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210914085414/https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlangreth/2010/12/21/why-biotech-investing-is-like-gambling-in-vegas/

413. Stafford SL, Bokil NJ, Achard MES, Kapetanovic R, Schembri MA, McEwan AG, et al. Metal ions in macrophage antimicrobial pathways: emerging roles for zinc and copper. Bioscience Reports2013;33(4). https://doi.org/10.1042/bsr20130014

414. Rosenberg MB. Nonviolent Communication: a Language of Life. Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press;2015.

415. Sears M. Humanizing health care: creating cultures of compassion in health care with nonviolent communication. Encinitas, CA: Puddle Dancer Press; 2010.

416. Kashtan I, Kashtan M. Basics of nonviolent communication; 2021.

     https://baynvc.org/basics-of-nonviolent-communication/

417. Friesem E. Nonviolent communication for talking about coronavirus; 2021.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210922062125/https://mediaeducationlab.com/sites/default/files/NVC%20and%20coronavirus%20for%20MEL%20EF%20RH.pdf

418. Sessa B, Fischer FM. Underground MDMA-, LSD-and 2-CB-assisted individual and group psychotherapy in Z¨urich: Outcomes, implications and commentary. Drug Science, Policy and Law2015;2:2050324515578080. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050324515578080

419. Meckel Fischer F. Therapy with Substance: Psycholytic Psychotherapy in the Twenty First Century.

     Muswell Hill Press; 2015.

420. Labate BC, Cavnar C, editors. The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca. Springer Berlin Heidelberg; 2014.

     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40426-9.

421. Passie T. Healing with Entactogens: Therapist and Patient Perspectives on MDMA-Assisted Group Psychotherapy. Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS); 2012.

     https://www.amazon.com/dp/0979862272.

422. Stolaroff M. Using psychedelics wisely. A veteran researcher explains how psychedelics can be used togive beneficial results. GNOSIS; 1993. http://psychonautdocs.com/docs/stolaroff_using.htm

423. Frecska E, Bokor P, Winkelman M. The therapeutic potentials of ayahuasca: possible effects against various diseases of civilization. Frontiers in Pharmacology 2016;7:35.

     https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fphar.2016.00035

424. Carboni E, Carta AR, Carboni E, Novelli A. Repurposing ketamine in depression and related Disorders: can this enigmatic drug achieve success? Frontiers in Neuroscience 2021;15.

     https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.657714

425. Mollaahmetoglu OM, Keeler J, Ashbullby KJ, Ketzitzidou-Argyri E, Grabski M, Morgan CJA. “This is something that changed my life”: a qualitative study of patients' experiences in a clinical trial of ketamine treatment for alcohol use disorders. Frontiers in Psychiatry 2021;12.

     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.695335

426. Stewart LH. The dissociative psychedelic renaissance. Journal of Psychedelic Studies 2018;2(2):61-3.

     https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2018.013

427. Feder A, Costi S, Rutter SB, Collins AB, Govindarajulu U, Jha MK, et al. A randomized controlled trial of repeated ketamine administration for chronic post traumatic stress disorder. American Journalof Psychiatry 2021;178(2):193-202. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20050596

428. Feder A. Ketamine as a Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – study results(NCT02397889). ClinicalTrials.gov; 2021.

     https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT02397889?view=results

429. Stein MB, Simon NM. Ketamine for PTSD: well, isn’t that special. American Journal of Psychiatry2021;178(2):116-8. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20121677

430. Roseman L, Ron Y, Saca A, Ginsberg N, Luan L, Karkabi N, et al. Relational processes in ayahuasca groups of Palestinians and Israelis. Frontiers in Pharmacology 2021;12.

     https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.607529

431. Grof S. Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy (SUNY series inTranspersonal and Humanistic Psychology). Excelsior Editions; 2010.

432. Allione T. Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict. Little, Brown andCompany; 2008.

433. Allione T. How to feed your demons. Lion’s Roar; 2020.

     https://web.archive.org/web/20210506020750/https://www.lionsroar.com/how-topractice-feeding-your-demons/

434. van Marken Lichtenbelt W. Who is the Iceman? Temperature 2017;4(3):202-5.

     https://doi.org/10.1080/23328940.2017.1329001

435. Kox M, van Eijk LT, Zwaag J, van den Wildenberg J, Sweep FCGJ, van der Hoeven JG, et al.

     Voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system and attenuation of the innate immune response in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2014;111(20):7379-84.

     https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1322174111

436. Ledford H. Behavioural training reduces inflammation. Nature 2014.

     https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2014.15156

Since COVID-19 emerged in Canada in March 2020, what physicians, scientists, public health
officials and citizens have understood about the virus and how to address it has changed drastically. The continually evolving information overload is understandably confusing and overwhelming, and the conflicts between information can be difficult to validate.

The following considerations may help you to more clearly consider these challenges:

Dialogue over these issues is difficult, divisive, and threatens to tear us apart. As we navigate this rapidly evolving situation, we believe some ethical and legal principles should remain constant in a free and democratic society:

• First and foremost, the right and responsibility of adults to make their own decisions about their health and to be accorded respect for questioning mandates that have farreaching social implications
• Free, voluntary and “informed consent”
• Human rights and responsibilities
• Fiduciary duties for all governing authorities and adherence to professional and institutional ethical codes of conduct
• Evidence, matters of conscience, and precaution as fundamental to medical decisionmaking
• Honest and open inquiry

As caring and responsible individuals, it is crucial that we remain open to listening to each other, continuing to ask questions, and recognizing that we are all doing the best we can to keep those we love safe. This is especially true regarding concerns about scientific and medical issues which have a huge impact on the health and welfare of our population. Our COVID-19 resources are offered as learning tools. Feel free to use the information, forms and FAQs as resources with which to engage your government, representatives, health care providers, family and friends.

The three monkeys at the Toshogu Shinto temple. They illustrate the precept of a Chinese sage: "Say nothing wrong, see nothing wrong, hear nothing wrong. They could also illustrate Western cowardice: "Say nothing of the Truth, see nothing of the Truth, hear nothing of the Truth.”

The celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 give rise to two absolutely contradictory narratives, depending on whether one refers to the written and audio-visual press or to the digital press. For some, Al Qaeda declared war on the West by plotting a high-profile crime, while for others the same crime masked a domestic coup d’état in the US.

Any debate is impossible between the supporters of these two versions. Not because both sides refuse it, but because the supporters of the official version -and only they- refuse it. They consider their opponents as "conspiracy theorists", that is to say, in their mind, at best fools, at worst evil people, accomplices -willing or not- of terrorists.

From now on, this disagreement applies to any major political event. And the worldview of the two camps keeps distancing itself from each other.

How could such a fracture between fellow citizens occur in societies that aspire to democracy? Especially since, not this fracture, but the reaction to this fracture makes any democracy impossible.

The continuous news channels privilege the speed of the retransmission of an event. They do not have the time to contextualize it and even less to analyze it; functions which are the proper of journalism. The viewer becomes a voyeur of things he does not understand.

A certain conception of journalism

We are assured today that the role of journalists is to report faithfully what they have seen. Yet when we are interviewed by a local media outlet about a story we know about and see how they have handled it, we are often disappointed. We feel that we have not been understood. Some of us lament that we have come across the wrong journalist and retain our trust in the mainstream media. Others feel that while a little distortion is possible on small issues, a lot more must be done on more complex ones.

In 1989, a crowd attending one of his speeches heard the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, accuse the fascists of having invented the Timișoara massacre attributed to his regime’s torturers. Revulsed by this denial, the crowd revolted, chanting "Ti-mi-șoa-ra! Ti-mi-șoa-ra!" and overthrew him. The local television station in Atlanta (USA), CNN, broadcast live the few days of this revolution. It thus became the first live news channel and turned into an international channel. However, we know today that this massacre never existed. It was only a staged event using corpses taken from a morgue. It was later learned that a propaganda unit of the US Army had an office adjacent to the CNN newsroom.

The Timișoara manipulation only worked because it was live. Viewers had no time to check or even think. Professionally, no journalist ever drew any conclusions from the event. On the contrary, CNN became the model for the live news channels that have sprung up everywhere.

During the Kosovo war, in 1999, I was producing a daily bulletin summarizing the information from NATO and the regional news agencies (Austria, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Albania, etc.) to which I had subscribed [1]. From the beginning, what Nato was telling us in Brussels was not confirmed by the regional agencies. On the contrary, they described a completely different conflict. It was strange to see that the regional journalists, from all countries except Albania, formed a block, writing texts that were compatible with each other, but not with those of NATO. Week after week, the two versions were moving away from each other.

I n response to this situation, NATO put Jamie Shea in charge of its communications. He told a new story every day from the battlefield. The international press soon had eyes only for him. His story became the media story and the regional news agencies were no longer covered except by me. In my mind, both sides were lying and the truth had to be somewhere in between.

When the war was over, humanitarians, diplomats and UN soldiers rushed to Kosovo. To their surprise - and mine - they found that the local journalists had accurately reported the truth. Jamie Shea’s words had been nothing but war propaganda. They had been the only "reliable" source for the international media for three months.

Western journalists who went to Kosovo also found that they had trusted people who had lied to them with aplomb. Yet few of them changed their tune. And even fewer managed to convince their editors that NATO had deceived them. The narrative imposed by the Atlantic Alliance had become the Truth that the history books would repeat despite the facts.

We accept to be deceived when we think the Truth is too hard to admit.

Ancient Greece and the Modern West

In ancient Greece, plays caused strong emotions in the audience. Some feared that the gods would drag them into dark destinies. So gradually the chorus, which narrated the story, also began to explain that one must not be fooled by what one saw, but to understand that it was only a staged show.

This distancing from appearances, which is paralyzed by the myth of live information, is called in psychology the "symbolic function". Small children are incapable of this, they take everything seriously. However, at the "age of reason", at 7 years old, we can all make the difference between what is true and what is only a representation.

Reason here is opposed to rationality. To be rational is to believe only in things that are proven. To be reasonable is not to believe in impossible things. This is a very big difference. Because we don’t find the Truth with beliefs, but with facts.

When we see airplanes hitting the World Trade Center in New York and people jumping out of windows to escape the fire, we are all very moved. When the Towers collapse, we are ready to weep. But that should not stop us from thinking [[2](#nb2 "On the political significance of the September 11 attacks, read: "20th (...)")].

We can always be told that 19 hijackers hijacked four airplanes, but since these people were not on the airline’s lists of passengers on board, they could not hijack these planes.

One can always tell us that the fuel from the two burning planes slipped onto the pillars of the buildings and melted them, which would explain why the Twin Towers collapsed, but not on themselves, and not the collapse of the third tower. For a building to collapse, not on one side, but on itself, you have to blow up its foundations, then blow it up from top to bottom to destroy the floors on themselves.

One can always tell us that panic-stricken passengers phoned their relatives before dying, but since the telephone companies have no record of these calls, they did not exist.

One can always tell us that a Boeing destroyed the Pentagon, but it could not have entered through a porte cochere without damaging the doorframe.

The testimonies contradict each other. But only some are contradicted by the facts.

We accept to be deceived when we think the Truth is too hard to admit.

Why we accept to be deceived

There remains a big problem: why do we accept to be deceived? Usually because the Truth is harder for us to accept than the lie.

For example, when for years the son of the president of the National Political Science Foundation denounced the rapes he was subjected to by the president, everyone pitied the poor delusional boy and praised his father for enduring his madness without saying a word. When the victim’s sister published a book of testimonies, everyone realized who was telling the truth. The president was forced to resign. The rapist owes his escape from justice only to his status: former European deputy, president of the emblematic institution of the entire French political-media class and president of the Siècle, the most exclusive private club in France.

Why do we believe that Al Qaeda is responsible for the 9/11 attacks? Because the Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, came before the United Nations Security Council and swore it. It doesn’t matter that he lied years earlier when he validated the story of the incubators stolen from Kuwait by the Iraqis and the babies left to die. Or that he lied later about President Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. He is a Secretary of State and we must believe him.

On the contrary, if we question his word, we should not only ask why we invaded Afghanistan, then Iraq, and so on. But also and above all why he lied.

The irremovable Anthony Fauci has managed every major epidemic in the US. He does not work as a doctor, but as a senior civil servant. He does not care about the Hippocratic oath. He has not hesitated to embezzle public money to sponsor illegal and dangerous research in a distant country. Or to promote the compulsory confinement of healthy people.

The reaction to Covid-19: another 9/11

The enigma of 9/11 is not a question of the past. Our understanding of the last twenty years depends on how it is answered. As long as we do not have contradictory debates between the two versions, we will reproduce this fracture on all global issues.

We are currently experiencing another catastrophe, the Covid-19 pandemic. We have all seen a large laboratory, Gilead Science, bribe the editors of the medical journal The Lancet to denigrate a drug, hydroxychloroquine. Gilead Science is the company formerly headed by the 9/11 Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. It is also the company that produces a drug against Covid-19, Remdesivir. In any case, no one dared to look for drugs to treat Covid anymore. Everyone turned to the hope of vaccines.

Donald Rumsfeld had instructed his staff to develop protocols in case of a bioterrorist attack on US military bases abroad. Then he asked one of them, Dr. Richard Hachett, who was a member of the US National Security Council, to extend this protocol to an attack on the US civilian population. It was this man who proposed the compulsory confinement of healthy populations, provoking an outcry from American doctors, led by Professor Donald Henderson of John Hopkins University [3]. For them, Rumsfeld, Hatchett and their advisor, the senior civil servant Anthony Fauci, were enemies of the Hippocratic oath and of humanity.

When the Covid-19 epidemic occurred, Dr. Richard Hatchett had become the director of CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations); an association created at the Davos Forum and funded by Bill Gates. It was Hatchett who first used the expression "We are at war", which was taken up by his friend President Emmanuel Macron. It was he who advised confining healthy populations as he had imagined 15 years earlier in the "war on terror." Anthony Fauci, on the other hand, was still at his post. He had embezzled federal money to finance illegal research in the United States. The research was conducted for him at the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan.

Normally, the medical professions would have risen up again against the compulsory confinement of healthy people. This did not happen. They overwhelmingly considered that the situation required violating the Hippocratic oath.

Today, the Western countries that followed Dr. Hatchett’s advice and believed Gilead Science’s lies have a terrifying record of this pandemic. The United States has 26 times more deaths per million people than China. And its economy is devastated.

This would deserve some debate and explanation, but no. We prefer to see our societies fractured again between supporters of Anthony Fauci or Professor Didier Raoult.

Conclusion

Instead of talking to each other, of confronting our arguments, we organize false debates between the supporters of the dominant doxa and those of the most grotesque opinions possible.

It is useless to aspire to live in a democracy, if we refuse to really discuss the most important subjects.

This is — without a doubt — the best articulation as to the ethical problem posed by mandatory vaccines or vaccine passports.

Dr. Julie Ponesse explains the dilemma in a persuasive manner.

Watch the whole 4 minute video, split across 3 segments in this thread

As the pandemic rolled into its second year, I became concerned that the psychosocial fallout of the pandemic, and especially the response at the global and local levels, could represent an existential threat to permaculture and kindred movements. At one level, this threat is the same as that to families, workplaces, networks and organisations more generally, where a sense of urgency to implement the official response, especially lockdowns and mass vaccination, is producing a huge gulf between an ever more certain majority and a smaller minority questioning or challenging the official response.

My aim in this essay is to focus on the critical importance of using all our physical, emotional and intellectual resources towards maintaining connections across what could be a widening gulf of frustration and distrust within our movement, reflecting society at large. I want to explore how permaculture ethics and design principles can help us empathetically bridge that gulf without needing to censor our truth or simply avoid the issues.

While the pandemic and the responses to it will pass in time, I believe the future will be characterised by similar issues that test our ability to tolerate uncertainty and diversity and to thus exercise solidarity within kin, collegiate and network communities of practise.

International Permaculture Day May 2013 Daylesford Community Garden

Future Scenarios and the Brown Tech future

The positive grounded thinking that characterises permaculture has always been informed by a dark view of the state of the world and long-term emerging threats. Future Scenarios is my 2008 exploration of four near-future ‘energy descent’ scenarios driven by the variable rates of oil and resource depletion on the one hand and rate of onset of serious climate change on the other. Six years later, I wrote the essay ‘Crash on Demand: Welcome to the Brown Tech Future’ where I ‘called’ Brown Tech as being the already emergent scenario.

In the longer version of this ‘Pandemic brooding’ essay, I review and reinterpret this work in light of the pandemic and responses to it.

Permaculture pluralism

Anyone involved in permaculture knows that permies can come to quite different conclusions about what is the most ethical and practical solution to the same problem. For example faced with marauding wildlife, some will go to considerable expense (and resource consumption) building elaborate fences, anti-aviaries and other deterrents to separate wildlife from food. Others will treat the wildlife as another abundance of the system to be harvested. Various permaculture principles, as well as the fundamental ethic of Care of Earth, might be invoked to support both approaches.

Likewise, many permies believe taxation is essential to redistribute resources from places of abundance to those of scarcity and as an expression of solidarity essential to any functioning, let alone ethical, society. Others see almost all the expenditure by governments of tax revenues as representing rape of Mother Earth’s abundance and theft from Indigenous peoples, and further as either downright evil or at best a bandaid covering festering wounds. An ethical response is to minimise taxpaying (by reducing income and consumption). Again, design principles and ethics can be invoked to support either position.

From my perspective, grappling with the ethical and systemic issue is more important than the notion that there might be a correct answer, and therefore a wrong answer, to the challenge. In the past, there have been heated debates, and agreements to disagree, but rarely would participants in permaculture design courses, convergences or networks see the answers of others as reasons to reject permaculture. Many celebrate personal actions as small-scale experiments with their good, bad and interesting outcomes informing other experiments, especially the next generation’s, as we muddle through energy descent to hopefully more benign, or at least less-bad, futures.

Pandemic flavoured Brown Tech

I believe the pandemic and the responses to it represent a major turning point in crystalising the Brown Tech future. It ticks so many boxes:

• a nature-driven crisis which has been long predicted, and to some extent, planned for
• rolling uncertainty that progressively breaks down past expectations
• a crisis which, like a war, requires the suspension of normal economic activity, personal rights and governance processes
• a demand for strong action by government for the common good informed by science
• a revival of Keynesian policies including a massive increase in government debt
• an enemy (the virus) that can be easily demonised without there being too many defenders to ignore or silence
• strong censorship of broadcast media and novel efforts to censor social media to sideline debate that could undermine the rapidly emergent and evolving program.

If the crisis is not solved, then demonisation progressively shifts to those resisting the plan.

This situation is creating the fork in the road where some permies will find themselves (perhaps surprisingly) following the program, while others will have become certain that they will at least quietly resist complying to some degree or other, right up to a radicalised public resistance, whether that be through resigning from work, street protest or satirical art.

We can learn and gain, individually and collectively, from these increasingly divergent paths – but the learnings could be painful. Let’s consider the benefits that might have led permies down one or another path, perhaps unwittingly, to increasingly polarised positions.

The mainstream plan

Although there are differences of emphasis and policies around the government responses to the pandemic, these debates are around the margins, even if they are at times heated. Most fundamentally, the mainstream plan, informed by the scientific and medical establishment, takes the following as self-evident:

• The virus is an existential threat to society that must be contained and disarmed if not eliminated before an establishment of some hoped-for, tolerable new normal.
• Social distancing, disinfectant cleaning, testing, contact tracing, masks and various levels of quarantine, border controls and lockdowns are the only mechanisms available to prevent collapse of the health system and deaths escalating to horrific levels in the short term.
• Novel vaccine technology is the only real hope for a tolerable new normal.
• To achieve effective herd immunity and minimise death, some great majority of the adult population and probably children need to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
• The adverse effects of these provisionally approved vaccines are minor and/or rare and much less than the risk of the disease.
• Preventative and early treatments are at best of marginal value, or more likely based on false hope and fraud.
• The suspension of normal civil liberties is a necessary, albeit temporary, measure to achieve the plan in a timely fashion and reduce the suffering both from the virus and the plan itself.
• People who actively resist the plan need stronger social, economic and, where necessary, legal sanctions to ensure their actions don’t prevent the plan from working for the common good.
• Apart from debate around the margins about how best to respond to these givens, debate and questioning at the level of science, logistics, economics, law, politics, media and social media is not just unnecessary, but an existential threat to the plan and society at large, so must be prevented by unprecedented means.
• It is the responsibility of every citizen to play a part in the plan, be bold in convincing those who are hesitant, and challenging those not following the plan, especially those actively resisting it.

Permies following the plan are likely to see themselves as being part of a society-wide collective effort to minimise pain and suffering in the aged, the disadvantaged and those in poor health; a choice in favour of collective and longer-term gain at the cost of individual and short-term sacrifice. For many of us, this is a perfect metaphor for what is needed to address the climate emergency. By accepting what appears to be a broad consensus of global, national and local medical and scientific experts, we avoid the protracted debate and lack of a technical consensus that has stymied governments in initiating strong action to address the climate emergency.

For permies in despair about the waste and dysfunction of the consumer economy, the closure, albeit temporary, of many discretionary services and businesses is a taste for how we might need to decide what is important; maximum consumer choice for the affluent versus the provision of basic needs for all. The personal sacrifice and adaptation to difficulties, including stay-at-home lockdown, have been opportunities to focus more on the important things in life and get a taste of what social solidarity feels like.

Reports of contrarian views seem to mostly come from sources contaminated by association with climate denial and other views we categorically reject. The resisters’ outrage looks to many like just more selfish, science denying and ignorant right-wing rednecks, trying to prevent collective wisdom and social solidarity from working. Familiar powerful bad players in global corporations or nation states have been replaced by much more immediate angry undesirables, who without much power or vision, could wreck the hard work of the collective to create a workable new normal.

The dissident view

It is more difficult to generalise about those who question or reject the program. A great diversity of views, explanations, feelings and actions flourish in an environment of unprecedented censorship. While there is great sensitivity about the term ‘censorship’, let alone ‘propaganda’ by those supporting the plan, for those on the other side, it is astonishing how rapidly the axe has fallen on enquiry, and debate, in the mainstream media, social media, workplaces and families, let alone in defence of what – until very recently – most of us took as our inalienable rights.

For many permies, the pandemic seems another example of hyped threat like the ‘war on weeds’, ‘war on drugs’, ‘war on terror’ used to manipulate the population to comply with some version of disaster capitalist1Disaster capitalism feeds off natural (climate change) and other disasters to provide recovery and reconstruction services funded by the public that typically benefit the corporate providers and contribute to ongoing dependencies. The term was used by Naomi Klein to describe the evolution of late stage capitalism over recent decades. solutions. Most sceptics acknowledge the virus as real, but not as dangerous as the cure in lockdowns and other draconian measures. The ‘war on the virus’ seems just as futile or misguided as all the other wars on nature, substances and concepts. So much for trying to have nuanced discussions about viruses as an essential and largely symbiotic mechanism for the exchange of genetic material and mediation of evolution!

While the closure and loss of cafés, gyms and hairdressers might not be a great loss, except to those directly affected, many of us have noticed that the official response to the pandemic tends to follow a pattern of support and strengthening of dominant corporations while leading to the weakening and likely collapse of small business and community self-organised activities.

During the first lockdown, ‘stay at home in your household’ was celebrated as a great plus for people getting the RetroSuburbia message. More recently, the messaging about the problem of shared and multi-generation households being suspect has been building, especially in the working-class western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne where many of essential and less well paid workers live. We have shifted from a joke about ‘which permie created the pandemic?’ to a gritted teeth recognition that the response to the pandemic is working to vacuum people into another level of dependence on techno-industrial systems.

Many permies have taken advantage of the shift online to network more effectively around the country and the world, but we are deeply troubled by our increasing dependence on mediated experiences and what seems like draconian regulation of informal engagement with people and nature. The concerns for what this is doing to children are far more serious than the loss of the regulated version of social interaction that children get at school.

For many of us, it is completely natural to be sceptical about one big fast answer provided by the giants of the pharma industry, while they have been granted legal immunity for the consequences of their novel products. Many have made the rational assessment that the very low risks of the virus (for most of us at least) seem better than the unknown of a novel technology approved and pushed on a frustrated and frightened population in record time. Some in this camp were sceptical about vaccines in general but most have been influenced by the largely censored views from some leading global experts, that these vaccines are in a totally different risk category to all previous vaccines.

While waiting and seeing what happens next may look selfish to the majority, the difficulty in getting access to data and unbiased interpretation drives many to rely on their gut feelings. One or more examples of spin and manipulation of data by officials, and especially the media, leads to a general collapse in trust about any, and even all, aspects of the official story. For instance:

• Many of us have seen evidence that existing low cost and low risk treatments are available and used effectively in some countries resisting the ‘no available treatment’ orthodoxy.
• Most understand that while the vaccines seemed to give some protection from more severe effects at least in the early stages, they do not appear to stop transmission, at least of the latest variant.
• Many wonder why the build-up of natural immunity from prior exposure to the virus is not considered as part of the solution that should at least be discussed before vaccine passports are implemented.

Concerns about more serious adverse effects of the vaccines, as predicted by some experts, have developed into alarm, anger and resistance as both the evidence increases and efforts at cover up and spin become worse. Extreme consequences that many of us dismissed early on as highly unlikely are now showing up in hard-to-read scientific papers, clinical reports and official records and databases.

A similar process has happened with the official responses. For example vaccine passports are now widely discussed and debated as part of the attempt to get as many people vaccinated as possible, as the efficacy of vaccines falls and concerns about adverse effects lock in resistance by a minority. At the start of the pandemic this possibility was decried as paranoid conspiracy theory.

France has been leading the charge to impose vaccine passports for many public and work spaces including hospitals. It’s hard to assess how large the resistance will be in different countries and circumstances but there are already signs that whole industries will lose a significant part of their workforce as some substantial minority of the population withdraw their work, consumption and investment in the system rather than getting the vaccine. Whether by design, policy stupidity or the unexplained viral power of censored scientists and vaccine doubters to overcome the largest public health education/public relations/propaganda effort in history, it is conceivable that the result could be economic contraction on a much larger scale than has occurred as a result of lockdowns so far.2 I can’t help but see what is unfolding as a bizarre version of my ‘Crash on Demand’ scenario

Economic contraction could mostly be in the discretionary economy, but how would the health system cope with a loss of staff, especially if some combination of ineffective vaccines against new strains and antibody-enhanced disease lead to medically informed people losing faith before the general public? Part of the solution might be doctors and nurses from overseas,3In the week since I wrote this sentence, doctors from overseas are now part of the plan for Australia or the adoption of treatment options for Covid currently being used with success in countries like Mexico and India.

Australia and New Zealand seem to be something of a test bed for the most authoritarian regulations in an attempt to keep Covid as close to zero as possible (and failing). Large numbers of people in other countries see us as a police state and wonder why there hasn’t been more resistance Down Under.

Some of us have noted plans promoted by the World Economic Forum for a Global Reset that will require a command economy to respond to the climate emergency, and that the pandemic is an opportunity to implement some of the structures and processes needed to create what some fear is a global new world order.

For many people, the trajectory from trust to mistrust often leads to either deep depression or an energised anger, mostly focused on the authorities but often expressed to friends and family at great cost to all concerned.

Although I have some of those thoughts and feelings, I mostly feel a great tension between a deep and somewhat detached fascination with the big picture and the sense of urgency I habitually feel in spring to get fully cranking with the seasonal garden and generally keeping our home at Melliodora shipshape. I feel like I finally have a box seat to watch the train of techno-industrial civilization hitting the Limits to Growth stone wall and breaking apart, all in slow motion.

The rapidly evolving situation and all its psychological, sociological and economic dimensions suggest an expanding field of possibilities. These could include:

• a cyber pandemic that crashes the global financial system,
• a short war between China and the USA4Part of my ‘A History from the Future’ story happening in 2022
• rapid reduction in consumption of oil and other critical resources and consequently greenhouse gas emissions as a result of the virus,
• plus of course accelerating climate disasters.

In different scenarios, concern about the virus and the ability to implement the plan could become ever more intense, or alternatively, be shunted offstage or metastasised into dealing with the next crisis. Consequently, the details of what worked, what didn’t, who takes the credit and who gets the blame, would probably all be lost in the swirling muddy waters of compounding crises.

A personal view of the pandemic

Up until this point, I have not indicated my personal interpretation of either the virus or the response because I wanted to focus on the bigger systemic drivers without getting muddied in the good/bad, right/wrong, us/them polarities. However we all have to face what life throws in our path with whatever internal and collective resources we have at hand. As is my lifelong habit, I have done my own ‘due diligence’ to understand and guide my personal decisions. In the past I have always been open about my conclusions and decisions, whether around the campfire or on the most public of forums. I have often joked about the comfort I feel in being a dissident about most things including being beaten up at primary school in the early days of the Vietnam war for being a ‘commie traitor’ to being ostracised in the 1990s for opposing the ‘war on weeds’ orthodoxy of the environmental mainstream. But today being a dissident is no joking matter. Unfortunately the psychosocial environment has now become so toxic that the pressures to self-censor have become much more complex and powerful. Much more is at stake than personal emotions, ego, reputation or opportunities and penalties.

Following my instinct for transparency, I will state my position, which has been evolving since I first started to consider whether the novel virus in Wuhan might lead to a repeat of the 1919 flu pandemic or even something on the scale of the Black Death. I can summarise my current position and beliefs as follows:

• The virus is real, novel and kills mostly aged, ill and obese people with symptoms both similar to and different from related corona viruses.
• It most likely is a result of ‘Gain of Function’ research at Wuhan Institute of Virology in China supported by funding from the US government.
• Escape rather than release was the more likely start of the pandemic.
• Vaccines in use in western world countries are based on novel technology developed over many years, but without resulting in effective or safe vaccines previously.
• The fear about the virus generated by the official response and media propaganda is out of proportion to the impact of the disease.
• Effective treatment protocols for Covid-19 exist and if those are implemented early in the disease, then hospitalisation and deaths can be greatly reduced, as achieved in some countries that faced severe impacts (especially Mexico and India).
• The socioeconomic and psychosocial impacts of the response will cause more deaths than the virus has so far, especially in poor countries.
• The efficacy of vaccines is falling while reported adverse effects are now much greater proportionally than for previous vaccines.
• The under-reporting of adverse events is also much higher than for previous vaccines, although this is still an open question.
• The possibility of antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) leading to higher morbidity and death in the future is a serious concern and could be unfolding already in countries such as Israel where early and high rates of vaccination have occurred.

Given the toxic nature of views already expressed about (and by) people I know and respect, I am not going to engage in an extensive collating of evidence, referencing who I think are reliable experts and intermediaries who can interpret the virus, the vaccine or any of the related parts of the puzzle. Outsourcing personal responsibility for due diligence to authorities is a risky strategy at the best of times; in times of challenge and rapid change the risks escalate. I do not want to convince anyone to not have the vaccine, but I do want to provide solidarity with those struggling (often alone and isolated) to find answers, so the following are two starting points that I think could be helpful:

• For those trying to understand the vaccines, their efficacy and risks, ‘This interview could save your life: a conversation with Dr Peter McCulloch’ provides a good overview with full reference to official data, scientific papers and clinical experience.
• For those focused on treatment options, the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCA) physicians are a good source on this rapidly emerging field of clinical practise.

As a healthy 66-year-old I am not personally afraid of the virus, but if greater virulence and death rate do emerge with new variants, I might consider the preventative regimen recommended by the FLCCA doctors. There is no way I will be getting any of the current vaccines in the foreseeable future, no matter what the sanctions and demonisation of my position on this matter.

At this point there may be readers who decide to ignore anything and everything I have written as obviously deluded. These are the costs of transparency.

Valuing the Marginal

Tolerance, let alone celebration of diversity, is not the easy permaculture principle many of us assume. Valuing the marginal can be even harder, especially if we study the darker periods of human history.

Over most of history, minority ethnicities and subcultures lived in ambiguous complementarity with dominant majorities. For hundreds, if not a thousand, years my Jewish ancestors made valuable contributions to European culture while managing to maintain their own culture to an extraordinary extent. They lived in ghettos not just for protection from the eruptions of intolerance in the dominant Christian communities but to ensure their language and culture wasn’t swamped by that of the majority. While the Jews carried the elitist belief that they were God’s Chosen People, they didn’t attempt to gain converts and were naturally respectful to the majority Christians. They survived through all but the worst of antisemitic pogroms by not antagonising the majority, largely accepting the restrictions placed on them by society. What else could they do?

Similar dynamics could emerge from the virus and the vaccine, where a subculture of home birth, home education, home food production and alternative health brings together people of previously diverse subcultures, including permies, who are excluded from society. That exclusion will seem self-inflicted to the majority, but for those excluded it will feel critical to both survival and identity.

Is it sensible to plead for tolerance in line with sensitivities to the rights of other minorities? Or is that just an invitation to be stoned to death, if not literally then virtually, on social media?

Unfortunately one of the weaknesses of western culture, which shows up in both Christian and Muslim traditions, is the idea that if a particular path is the correct one, then everyone should follow it. From the perspective of east Asian philosophy and many Indigenous traditions, harmonious balance is more important than the right way. The yin yang symbol showing each polarity containing the seed of its opposite encapsulates this critically important antidote to the recurring western theme about the triumph of good over evil. In The Patterning Instinct Jeremy Lent explores how these different world views have shaped history and that any emergent ecological world view will foreground the importance of harmonious balance.

The wisdom of the collective

I want to lead by example in trying to understand and articulate why it is good that the majority of the population appears to be strongly behind the official plan and that maybe it is even good that a majority of my permaculture colleagues might be lining up to get vaccinated, when I have no intention of doing so.

Firstly, I acknowledge the obvious reason that if the official story is right, the majority getting vaccinated will combine with naturally acquired immunity and control the worst effects of the virus without the need to get every last dissenter vaccinated.

Secondly, given the pressure to push the vaccination rate in every way possible, encouraging some extra hesitators to resist will only increase the pressure and possibly lead to harsher sanctions as well as more broken family relationships, reputations, pain and suffering, which could be worse than potential adverse effects of the virus, or the vaccine, on those people.

Thirdly, because so many people I respect as intelligent and ethical are following the plan, I won’t fall into the trap of losing respect for who they are, what they have done and what else they might do in the future. And if it turns out this is the start of a more permanent hard fascist command state, then we need people of good values on the inside to keep open whatever channels of communication remain possible.

As systems unravel, the stories that make sense of the world also fall apart and in the desperate search for mental lifeboats, different stories come to the fore. The mainstream story around the pandemic is one such mental lifeboat that allows people to maintain faith and function. Without the renewed source of faith and order from rational science guiding technological wizardry, the psychosocial shock from a pandemic could be enough to create social, economic and political chaos on a historically unprecedented scale, at least in long-affluent countries like Australia.

Whatever the nature of the next crisis, I think it will require citizens to by and large accept that the behaviours, rights and freedoms we took for granted are artifacts of a vanishing world. Further, it will provide a harsh reality check on how dependent most of us are on systems we have no control over, so most will find they have little choice but to accept the new state of affairs.

While I might resent what I see as unnecessary sanctions on those resisting, I accept than in the early stage of Brown Tech energy descent, harsh and by some perspectives, arbitrary, controls on behaviour will be part of our reality and are arguably necessary to maintain some sort of social order (even if short-sighted or not sustainable in the long run). My aim is to focus on how we ameliorate the adverse effects of a predicament that humanity cannot escape.

More philosophically, the virus and the response to it could be seen as a meditation practise showing us how no one is an island separated from the whole of life. To break down the toxic notion that we are free agents to do as we choose without consideration of consequences, especially for future generations and the wider community of life, is something permaculture teaching has tried to bring to daily life. How we do this in meaningful ways is a constant challenge.

Sympathy for the devil

Having at least had a go at seeing the good in the mainstream plan, I now want to articulate quite passionately why the majority should at least tolerate and not seek to further punish the minority for their resistance. To advocate for this within the permaculture movement, I appeal to our pluralism in celebrating the diversity of action. This is especially where permies take the risk of being the unvaccinated guinea pigs, who can at least be a control group in this grand experiment on the human family. Beyond that, I hope our colleagues inside the tent will see the need to express solidarity with our right to chart our own course and not feel they have to be silent for fear of being cast out of the tent.

While I respect the younger permaculture folk following the plan for the common good, I still believe the most creative deep adaptations to the Brown Tech world will be crafted at the geographic and conceptual fringes by younger risk takers coming together in new communities of hope. While the paths to the armoured centre and the feral fringes both have their risks, those on the inside, especially older people, should accept that the young risk takers on the fringes might create pathways though the evolutionary bottleneck of energy descent more effectively than the best resourced and rationally devised plans from within the system of thinking that has created the civilisation crises.

Whether or not the pandemic will lead to the flowering of creative light-footed models for adaptation, the larger energy descent crisis for which permaculture was originally designed (that most permies recognise as the ‘Climate Emergency’) needs these responses at the margins. If the permaculture movement cannot digest this basic truth and at least defend the right of people to craft their own pathways in response to collapse of all certainties, then our movement will have failed the first great test of its relevance in a world of energy descent.

Some permie dissidents will double down in their focus on preparation to survive and thrive in spite of the sanctions, while others will be energised by non-violent direct action to resist what they see as draconian and counterproductive collective punishment. In doing so they may draw on past experience, or inspiration, from the frontlines of anti-war, environmental defence and free communication resistance.

In the past, more apolitical permies trying to introduce permaculture to socially conservative punters could still acknowledge, at least privately, the element of truth in the quip ‘permaculture is revolution disguised as gardening’. In today’s climate, can permies inside the tent accept and appreciate their colleagues on the frontlines of a new resistance movement that might moderate the extremes of how society navigates the larger climate emergency? Or will they flip and decide permaculture was, after all, mostly hippy nonsense now further contaminated with toxic right wing conspiracy madness, so must be dumped as unfit for purpose in our new world?

In saying this, I’m not suggesting we should all follow suit, let alone belittle or demonise those who don’t take the walk on the wild side. That would also be a contradiction of permaculture ethics and design principles. As we have always taught, ethics and design principles are universal but rarely lead to clear and conclusive solutions. Strategies and techniques vary with the context; wonderful elegant design solutions for one context can be hopeless white elephants, or worse, in another. Context is everything and as colleague Dan Palmer has so effectively applied in his Living Design Process, the people context is as complex, subtle and diverse as that of the land and nature.

The sovereignty of persons to choose freely how they grapple with the tension between autonomy and the needs of the commonwealth is not just an ideal from western Enlightenment civilisation working out how to apply the gift of fossil fuel wealth. It is a fundamental expression of how the ecology of context is constantly shifting, and that all systems simultaneously express life through bottom-up autonomy of action and top-down guidance of collective wisdom.

In times of great stability, the distilled wisdom of the collective, embodied in institutions, carries human culture for the long run. Sometimes the sanctions on the individuals who rejected the rules of the collective were harsh and, according to modern thinking, arbitrary but over long periods of relative stability, those rules kept society working. In times of challenge and change it is, ironically, dissidents at the fringes who salvage and conserve some of the truths of the dying culture into the unknown future to craft new patterns of recombinant culture.

What we call ‘science’ had its origins in what Pythagoras salvaged, almost single handedly, from the decadent and corrupt theocracies of ancient Egypt of which he was an initiate, before he walked away from the centre to the margins of civilisation. Major failures in the application of so-called trusted science have been a feature of our lived experience. Tragically, science could be one of the casualties as humanity passes through the cultural evolution bottleneck of climate chaos and energy descent. Permaculture was one attempt to craft a holistic applied design science grounded in observation and interaction, taking personal responsibility and accepting (negative) feedback, designing from patterns to details, and creatively using and responding to change. I still believe that salvaged and retrofitted versions of practical science crafted at the margins will serve humanity better than rigid faith in the priests of arcane specialised knowledge maintained by an empire of extraction and exploitation. Can we be sure what the father of science and mathematics would do in this time of turmoil?

Whatever the historical significance of these times, maintaining connections across differences of understanding and action within permaculture and kindred networks will strengthen us all in dealing with the unfolding challenges and opportunities of the energy descent future.

David Holmgren
Melliodora
September 2021

A newly published medical study found that infection from COVID-19 confers considerably longer-lasting and stronger protection against the Delta variant of the virus than vaccines.

“The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study that some scientists wish came with a ‘Don’t try this at home’ label,” Science reported Thursday. “The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.”

Put another way, vaccinated individuals were 27 times more likely to get a symptomatic COVID infection than those with natural immunity from COVID.

In Israel, vaccinated individuals had 27 times higher risk of symptomatic COVID infection compared to those with natural immunity from prior COVID disease [95%CI:13-57, adjusted for time of vaccine/disease]. No COVID deaths in either group.https://t.co/hopImCD1D0

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) August 25, 2021

A Death Blow to Vaccine Passports?

The findings come as many governments around the world are demanding citizens acquire “vaccine passports” to travel. New York City, France, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and British Columbia are among those who have recently embraced vaccine passports.

Meanwhile, Australia has floated the idea of making higher vaccination rates a condition of lifting its lockdown in jurisdictions, while President Joe Biden is considering making interstate travel unlawful for people who have not been vaccinated for COVID-19.

Vaccine passports are morally dubious for many reasons, not the least of which is that freedom of movement is a basic human right. However, vaccine passports become even more senseless in light of the new findings out of Israel and revelations from the CDC, some say.

Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff said research showing that natural immunity offers exponentially more protection than vaccines means vaccine passports are both unscientific and discriminatory, since they disproportionately affect working class individuals.

“Prior COVID disease (many working class) provides better immunity than vaccines (many professionals), so vaccine mandates are not only scientific nonsense, they are also discriminatory and unethical,” Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist, observed on Twitter.

Prior COVID disease (many working class) provides better immunity than vaccines (many professionals), so vaccine mandates are not only scientific nonsense, they are also discriminatory and unethical. https://t.co/d14kTPnCWk

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) August 27, 2021

Nor is the study out of Israel a one-off. Media reports show that no fewer than 15 academic studies have found that natural immunity offers immense protection from COVID-19.

“Among the most fraudulent messages of the CDC's campaign of deceit is to force the vaccine on those with prior infection, who have a greater degree of protection against all versions of the virus than those with any of the vaccines.”

15 studies show…https://t.co/oXaI3L0Y3S

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) August 26, 2021

Moreover, CDC research shows that vaccinated individuals still get infected with COVID-19 and carry just as much of the virus in their throat and nasal passage as unvaccinated individuals

“High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus,” CDC Rochelle Director Walensky noted following a Cape Cod outbreak that included mostly vaccinated individuals.

These data suggest that vaccinated individuals are still spreading the virus much like unvaccinated individuals.

The Bottom Line

Vaccine passports would be immoral and a massive government overreach even in the absence of these findings. There is simply no historical parallel for governments attempting to restrict the movements of healthy people over a respiratory virus in this manner.

Yet the justification for vaccine passports becomes not just wrong but absurd in light of these new revelations.

People who have had COVID already have significantly more protection from the virus than people who’ve been vaccinated. Meanwhile, people who’ve not had COVID and choose to not get vaccinated may or may not be making an unwise decision. But if they are, they are principally putting only themselves at risk.

The World Economic Forum estimates that the Covid response has cost the globe $11 trillion thus far and counting and AIER’s seminal analysis of the costs (mental health costs, hunger and poverty costs, direct economic costs, unemployment costs, educational costs, healthcare costs, and crime costs etc.), places the Covid ‘emergency’ in a sobering light. It reveals the devastating and crushing collateral damage from the unnecessary lockdowns, school closures, and masking and mask mandates that will impact the rest of the 21st century by some estimates. These harms have damaged the poorer class among us in a perverse and brutal manner. They destroyed businesses, destroyed employees who were sent home, destroyed lives, and destroyed the lives of children who committed suicide.

Yet the elites are far removed from the ramifications of their nonsensical, illogical, specious policies and edicts. Dictates that do not apply to them or their families or friends. The ‘laptop’ affluent class could vacate, work remotely, walk their dogs and pets, catch up on reading their books, and do tasks they could not do had they been in the workplace daily. They could hire extra teachers for their children etc. Remote working was a boon. The actions of our governments however, devastated and long-term hurt the poor in societies and terribly and perversely so, and many could not hold on and committed suicide. AIER’s Ethan Yang’s analysis showed that deaths of despair skyrocketed. Poor children, especially in richer western nations such as the US and Canada, self-harmed and ended their lives, not due to the pandemic virus, but due to the lockdowns and school closures. Many children took their own lives out of despair, depression, and hopelessness due to the lockdowns and school closures.

Our core position since the start of the Covid-19 response in February 2020 (and which remains fixed for how the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Caribbean nations, European nations, and all other global nations must presently respond to the Delta variant/mutation) is that we do not lock the society down or close schools or impose mask mandates, etc. These policies did not apply to this emergency and certainly not after the first 3 to 4 weeks or so. This applies just as much for the initial Wuhan variant and now for the Covid-19 Delta variant or any other variant to come, if the variant is not one with an extremely high level of lethality, as was presumed erroneously for the initial Wuhan variant. In fact, even with respect to the initial variant it became clear very early on in the pandemic that it was probably no more lethal than annual influenza, yet we persisted with draconian devastating lockdown policies that only served to harm the people. These restrictive policies worked to ruin and kill (direct and indirect) more persons than SARS-CoV-2 itself.

It is why leading infectious diseases experts especially with regards to pandemics (such as Dr. Donald Henderson of Johns Hopkins) never supported the non-pharmacological measures noted above, as they knew that such policies would be catastrophic; even for more lethal pathogens (see AIER).

“As experience shows, there is no basis for recommending quarantine either of groups or individuals. The problems in implementing such measures are formidable, and secondary effects of absenteeism and community disruption as well as possible adverse consequences, such as loss of public trust in government and stigmatization of quarantined people and groups, are likely to be considerable.”

None of these restrictive policy measures such as lockdowns and school closures have worked in the past for Covid-19 and they will not work now with this media-driven hysteria over the Delta variant. If reimposed, they will once again cause crushing harms and deaths due to the collateral effects.

The leaders in public health and government spokespersons as well as the corrupted media are quickly progressing towards endorsing and implementing and registering of individuals under the guise of a public health emergency. That our Governments are even considering the issuance of what have become known as Covid-19 ‘vaccine passports’ is very troubling on many levels. The very idea is anathema to our democratic principles and rights that are enshrined in the US Constitution.

The vaccine passports are being considered and/or introduced by various government bodies which will constrain the rights of citizens under the questionable guise of safety. These passports are simply unjustifiable on any grounds, not the least of which is the fact that SARS-CoV-2 is no more deadly on a population level than influenza. Ostensibly, the passports are designed to allow individuals to partake in everyday commerce and “life” with freedom.

There is even talk of immunity passports also known as ‘antibody passports’ with the concept of antibodies as a “declaration of immunity” or “golden passport” so as to return to routine work and travel. Yet, it is well known that insofar as immunity passports are concerned, antibody levels in people who’ve either had Covid-19, or have been vaccinated, wane after weeks to months.

Hence even someone who should be completely eligible not only for a vaccine passport but in fact an ‘immunity’ passport would easily fail the tests required to obtain such a passport. We and others argue that such will drive the development of a heretofore unheard of (in the USA and Canada) caste system of the haves (have vaccine passports) and the have nots (don’t have vaccine passports). Liew stated “the introduction of immunity passports is beset with challenges, not least of which is the potential erosion of civil liberties, as travelers are stratified into the ‘immunoprivileged’ and the ‘immuno-deprived.’

Experts have argued that the introduction of vaccine and/or immunization (antibody) passports must entail extensive debate that considers all of the moral, ethical and constitutional issues, including “a comprehensive assessment of benefits and harms, and what would least restrict individual liberties without significantly heightening the threat of Covid-19.”

The ACLU has weighed in, sounding warnings that there are many harms that can arise with the introduction of vaccine passports, particularly the digitization of relevant information associated with the granting of those passports. The ACLU stated, “Given the enormous difficulty of creating a digital passport system, and the compromises and failures that are likely to happen along the way, we are wary about the side effects and long-term consequences it could have.”

Now our concerns look to the future for more variants that will most assuredly emerge more efficiently than the Delta variant. Refocusing on the lockdowns, these restrictions are options of last resort as mentioned above (see Henderson, 2006, Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza). This basic principle applied to the first variant of SARS-CoV-2 and even more so to the Delta variant which appears to be the weakest, most nonconsequential of all the variants as can be computed based on data obtained in the UK and Israel (and other data). The emergence of the Delta variant is quite simply not a new Covid-19, nor was the Alpha (original) variant and sadly as a consequence of the draconian measures we’ve discussed, societies were decimated needlessly. There is now evidence out of Israel that the booster shot (3rd shot) is also met with emergent infections.

We were fantastically misled by the media and experts who doled out misinformation related to Covid-19 and the lockdowns and we were driven into a life of fear. This really is and was a pandemic of fear, of ignorance, and of hysteria. It continues to be so, underpinned by a corrupted biased media. This is ‘panic porn’ driven by a craven inept media, and the corrupt public health officials who are using the Delta variant (soon another e.g. Lambda or Epsilon), to drive further fear. We wonder if it is pure incompetence or unabashed unbridled bias and corruption?

The fact is that we knew very early on that Covid-19 was amenable to risk stratification that predicted outcome, especially with regard to severity and mortality. We know that an age-risk ‘focused’ (Great Barrington Declaration) and ‘targeted’ approach was the critical and only meaningful approach that should have been used. Then and now.

We argue and hold that these lockdown strategies have devastated the most vulnerable among us – the poor – who are now worse off. Lockdowns have hit the African-American, Latino, and South Asian communities devastatingly and have decimated developing nations. Lockdowns have made poor persons even poorer. Lockdowns and especially the extended ones have been deeply destructive and there was absolutely no reason to ever quarantine those up to 70 years old. There was no reason to test or quarantine asymptomatic individuals. And in relation to the testing of ‘asymptomatic’ people we can point to the subtle nature of the creation of an environment of fear. The mere use of the word ‘asymptomatic’ implies that everyone being tested is sick! They are not! They are healthy people! Why would we ever do mass testing for viral or other pathogens in healthy people? Readily accessible data showed consistently that there was near 100% probability of survival from Covid for those 70 and under (99.95%). Therefore, we strongly secure and safeguard the elderly as our core approach, while the young and healthiest among us should be ‘allowed’ to live their lives without fear. This was and is our position as we argued and continue to argue for a ‘focused’ and ‘targeted’ approach based on risk. We continue to suggest a similar approach for the Delta variant, based on the UK and Israel data (and other emerging data) and all other nonlethal variants yet to emerge.

This is not heresy. It is classic biology and modern public health medicine! As mentioned, those in the low to no risk categories must live reasonably normal lives with sensible common-sense precautions (while providing strong safeguards to the high-risk persons and vulnerable elderly). With strong protections of the high-risk among us and the use of early treatment as needed (for those infected will be in a better position to clear the virus and be then ‘naturally immune post early treatment), we can close off this pandemic emergency.

So, what do we know about Delta?

The good news is that Delta is so far proving to be the mildest form of Covid-19 as the mutations have focused on the Spike protein and in and around the gain-of-function furin cleavage joint, which causes the virus to be less dangerous.

This is great news, as those who have natural immunity will be immune to Delta, though we are seeing some breakthrough cases in those vaccinated.

Unfortunately, across the last 17 to 18 months, we chose to ignore the signals from the pandemic and instead we chose to focus on the noise to address Covid-19. We instead harmed our societies and especially our children!

We knew early on and ignored it, that Covid-19 was amenable to risk stratification and that your baseline risk was prognostic on your subsequent outcome, e.g. mortality. We had strong early evidence that a focused approach based on age and risk stratification was more optimal but disregarded this. The fact remains that age and excess body weight/obesity, have accounted for almost 80 to 85% of the hospitalizations, intubations/ventilation, severe sequelae, and deaths in Covid-19. Many persons who have died in nations such as the US have been overweight with some level of obesity. The importance of educating the public on the risk factors and the need for such protective efforts can be enhanced by the people themselves. Had public health leaders used their platforms optimally, the geared messaging would have helped reduce the damage significantly. We could have cut deaths significantly had the options described above been used, especially early outpatient treatment.

Understanding Covid-19 must therefore not involve the traditional unidimensional, dogmatic orthodoxy whereby we simply wish to control the spread of the virus or eradicate it. It remains an impossibility to eradicate a viral pathogen, especially if it is highly mutable like the flu virus. We as humanity have learned to live with such viruses. It is likely that Covid-19 will become the 5th ‘common cold’ coronavirus (if it isn’t already) and be with us for decades, in a mild, mainly nonlethal form, and will exhibit a seasonal pattern. Indeed, we have almost zero concerns about the common cold, and yet, the common cold is responsible for many deaths in the elderly or those with compromised immune systems. We will learn to live with it as we have for other pathogens, e.g. common cold, seasonal influenza etc., and we argue that this latest Delta variant is the step toward this largely ‘benign’ relationship with humans. At the same time, whenever there is a pathogen that is causing some level of illness, there is usually a greater severity and adverse sequelae in the lower SES populations (socioeconomically disadvantaged populations). We must therefore look at this consequence and consider a more nuanced and finessed approach to pathology, as we address targeting the pathogen. We can learn from this public health debacle created through wilful ignorance and the near criminal merging politics with medicine and not repeat the mistakes.

Where did we go so wrong with these lockdowns and school closures? The stark reality is that the Covid-inspired forced lockdowns on business and school closures are and have been counterproductive, were not sustainable and were, quite frankly, meritless, unscientific and may have caused more harm through forcing individuals into enclosed spaces. These unparalleled public health actions were enacted for a virus with an infection mortality rate (IFR) roughly similar to seasonal influenza. Stanford’s John P.A. Ioannidis identified 36 studies (43 estimates) along with an additional 7 preliminary national estimates (50 pieces of data) and concluded that among people <70 years old across the world, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.57% with a median of 0.05% across the different global locations (with a corrected median of 0.04%).

What is the conclusion after 17 to 18 months of Covid-19 (February 2020 to July 2021) in terms of the utility of societal lockdowns and school closures? What does the new evidence across the past year and a half add? What can we say based on the sum of the evidence to date? Have our positions changed on lockdowns and school closures as to the merits? We can state conclusively, after 17 months, that lockdowns and school closures were a catastrophic failure in every sense of the word! With careful examination of all available studies, reports, and documents that are judged of quality enough to inform this thesis, we can find not one instance, (not one!) across the entire globe whereby societal or setting lockdowns or school closures conferred any benefit in curbing the spread of Covid virus or reducing deaths. In fact, we find the contrary, whereby lockdowns and school closures were devastating and particularly on the poorer in society, benefitting the laptop ‘café latte’ class and decimating the underprivileged class.

What was incredible across the 17 months was that governments and their scientific advisors were not satisfied with the well-documented failures of lockdowns. None!

In terms of the evidence, what do we have to offer across 17 months now to support our argument against lockdowns, school closures, and masking (mask mandates)? Well, none of these measures have worked and will work. We offer:

i) in terms of lockdowns, based on our deep study, we found out about the catastrophic harms (consequences), threat, dehumanization, and failures of lockdowns and sheltering/shielding (including prolonged lockdowns) (references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88).

As an example, a very recent study in Nature by Jani looked at the effectiveness of this sheltering/shielding (lockdown), by linking family practitioner, prescribing, laboratory, hospital and death records and comparing Covid-19 outcomes among shielded and unshielded individuals in the West of Scotland. Researchers reported that of the 1.3 million population, 27,747 (2.03%) were advised to shield, and 353,085 (26.85%) were classified a priori as moderate risk. They found that by using the reference group as the low-risk group and when compared to this group, “the shielded group had higher confirmed infections (RR 8.45, 95% 7.44–9.59), case-fatality (RR 5.62, 95% CI 4.47–7.07) and population mortality (RR 57.56, 95% 44.06–75.19). The moderate-risk had intermediate confirmed infections (RR 4.11, 95% CI 3.82–4.42) and population mortality (RR 25.41, 95% CI 20.36–31.71) but, due to their higher prevalence, made the largest contribution to deaths (PAF 75.30%). Age ≥ 70 years accounted for 49.55% of deaths. In conclusion, in spite of the shielding strategy, high risk individuals were at increased risk of death.”

We found how pronounced the devastation was on the poorer in society, shifting the burden onto them. The richer among us could even tend to their gardens and walk their pets and order in meals while setting up private tutors for their children and teaching pods, etc. The less affluent had to scramble to find sources of internet, laptops and webcams for their children.

Micheal Peterson puts a face to this picture and said it best when he discussed the low savings of such underdeveloped nations and particularly the populations “in general, high domestic savings rates tend to lead to higher economic growth rates. Unfortunately, since developing countries typically have lower domestic savings, it’s much harder for those countries to weather lockdowns because individuals are unable to draw upon savings to compensate for lost income. For many developed nations, domestic savings is higher, which means that these countries will fare relatively better when income is severely reduced or altogether nonexistent,” due to the lockdowns and as such, shuttered businesses and as such, lost jobs.

A revealing statistic emerges in a World Bank working paper in which it was estimated that “approximately 1 in 5 jobs can be performed remotely in the developed world. In developing countries, this figure stands at only 1 in 26.” Here exactly is where the divide resides and where we failed to look and take into consideration. It is here that many poorer nations and settings were further ‘hollowed out’ by the often unsound and unscientific and as we argue, crushing, costly, illogical, and needless lockdowns and school closures.

ii) in terms of school closures and also based on our deep study and update of the evidence since our last Op-ed, we continue to conclude that there was and is no sound justification for school closures given the exceedingly low (statistically zero) risk to children and very low risk to schoolteachers (references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56). Children do not acquire the infection readily (including Delta variant), spread it, or take it home. More particularly, children are at a near statistically zero risk of getting severely ill from Covid or dying from it; again, this includes the Delta variant. We have found no data or evidence to suggest otherwise, despite the hysteria presently running 24/7 in the daily media and by the statements of the lead public health officials. We urge them to provide the nation and us the evidence that backs up anything they report on the Delta variant, for we can find none.

iii) We also know of the ineffectiveness of masks (references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41). We know of the failure of mask mandates (references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

More specifically on masking evidence, a particularly important seminal research study by the CDC published in Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) in May 2020 and looking at nonpharmaceutical measures for pandemic influenza in nonhealthcare settings (personal protective and environmental measures using 10 RCTs), found that use of masks did not reduce the rate of laboratory-proven infections with the respiratory influenza virus. “In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks”.

Similarly, a strong argument against the use of masks in the current Covid-19 pandemic gained traction when a recent CDC case-control study reported that well over 80% of cases always or often wore masks. This CDC study further called into question the utility of masks in the Covid-19 emergency. This CDC study showed that the majority of persons infected wore face masks, and still got infected.

Just look no further than the study out of Sweden by Jonas Ludvigsson on Covid transmission with no lockdowns or mask mandates in children. In terms of masking children which we are vehemently against (in school or out of school) Ludvigsson powerfully evidenced the low risk in children by publishing this seminal paper in the New England Journal of Medicine among children one to 16 years of age and their teachers in Sweden. From the nearly 2 million children that were followed in school in Sweden, it was reported that with no mask mandates, there were zero deaths from Covid and a few instances of transmission and minimal hospitalization.

What about the high-quality randomized controlled trial Danish Study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that sought to assess whether recommending surgical mask utilization outside of the home would help reduce the wearer’s risks of acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection in a setting where masks were uncommon and not among recommended public health measures. This can be regarded as the highest quality study on the effectiveness of Covid masks. The sample included a total of 3,030 participants who were assigned randomly to wear masks, and 2,994 who were told to not wear masks (i.e. the control arm). The authors concluded that there was no statistically or clinically significant impact of mask use in regard to the rate of infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Perhaps one of the most seminal and rigorous studies (along with the Danish study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine) emerged from a United States Marine Corps study performed in an isolated location; Parris Island. As reported in a recent NEJM publication (CHARM study), researchers studied SARS-CoV-2 transmission among Marine recruits during quarantine. Marine recruits at Parris Island (n=1,848 of 3,143 eligible recruits) who volunteered underwent a 2-week quarantine at home that was followed by a 2nd 2-week quarantine in a closed college campus setting.

iv) we even know of the harms due to mask use (references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32).

Overall, the research evidence alluded to here (including a summary by Ethan Yang) suggests that lockdowns and school closures do not (and definitely did not) lead to lower mortality or case numbers and have not worked as intended. Lockdowns have not slowed or stopped the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

Some critics of our position will point to data that ostensibly shows that the implementation of lockdowns led to reduced rates of death. However, these conclusions are based on artifactual and superfluous assessments. We know that declines in death were taking place even before lockdowns came into effect. In fact, in Europe, it was shown that in most cases, mortality rates were already 50% lower than peak rates by the time lockdowns were instituted, thus making claims that lockdowns were effective in reducing mortality spurious at best. Of course, this also means that the presumptive positive effects of lockdowns were and have been exaggerated grossly. Evidence shows that nations and settings that apply less stringent social distancing measures and lockdowns experience the same evolution (e.g. deaths per million) of the epidemic as those that apply far more stringent regulations.

What does this all mean?

These misguided policies have eroded the public trust. These policies include: 1) a flawed PCR test with cycle count thresholds that only pick up noninfectious fragments of viral mRNA; a Ct of 40 means one is noninfectious and nonlethal. 2) Asymptomatic spread 3) Recurrent infection 4) Equal risk of severe outcome if infected 5) No preventative or therapeutics available 6) We were not already partially immune; maybe as high as 80% (some level of immunity against SARS 2) 7) Social distancing of 6 feet prevents spread. 8) Mass testing asymptomatic persons 9) Quarantine asymptomatic persons 10) Children spread the virus and at risk of severe illness 11) Masks are effective against viral illnesses 12) Natural immunity was inferior to vaccine-induced immunity and 13) Evolutionary pressure towards virulence is caused by unvaccinated people.

Future generations will bear the cost of these decisions. Our children and younger people are going to be burdened with the indirect but very real harms and costs of lockdowns for a generation to come. Lives are being ruined and lost and businesses are being destroyed forever. Lower-income Americans, Canadians, and other global citizens are much more likely to be compelled to work in unsafe conditions. These are employees with the least bargaining power, tending to be minority, female, and hourly paid employees. Moreover, Covid-19 has revealed itself as a disease of disparity and poverty. This means that black and minority communities are disproportionately affected by the pandemic itself and they take a double hit, being additionally and disproportionately ravaged by the effects of the restrictive policies.

We do not need to drastically alter our society, the lives of our people, our economies, or our school systems to handle Covid and any variant that emerges. We are well capable of managing this with early treatment and properly securing the elderly and high-risk among us.

It is disheartening as to why governments, whose primary role is to protect their citizens, took these punitive actions despite the compelling evidence that these policies were misdirected and very harmful, causing palpable harm to human welfare on so many levels. It’s questionable what governments did (and now threaten to redo) to their populations with no scientific basis. None! In this, we lost our civil liberties and essential rights, all based on spurious ‘science’ or worse including, opinion, speculation, supposition, and whimsy. They just refused to listen, refused to read the data and science, and were blinded to it. Their ‘academically sloppy’ thinking and actions cost lives, and thousands of lives were cut short by their nonsensical and often irrational shutdown and closure policies.

We are hearing discussions now about renewed lockdowns and masking etc. due to the Delta variant which has emerged as one of the weakest in terms of lethality while being very transmissible. This greatly concerns us. We are horrified by this prospect and we have shown you the actual data as it relates to Delta, and not the contrived drivel and unscientific nonsense spouted by the mainstream media and the public health experts. There is absolutely no good reason to reenter lockdowns and school closures or masking in response to the Delta variant. We find no evidence that this variant warrants masks in children. We leave you with the words of Donald Henderson:

“Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements. If either is seen to be less than optimal, a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe.”

Contributing Authors

• Paul E Alexander MSc PhD, McMaster University and GUIDE Research Methods Group, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada [email protected]
• Howard C. Tenenbaum DDS, Dip. Perio., PhD, FRCD(C) Centre for Advanced Dental Research and Care, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada [email protected]
• Dr. Parvez Dara, MD, MBA, [email protected]
• Liesel Marie Alexander, MBA

[

Print](# "Printer Friendly, PDF & Email")

READ MORE

Paul E. Alexander

Paul E. Alexander received his bachelor’s degree in epidemiology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, a master’s degree from Oxford University, and a PhD from McMaster University’s Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact.

(Traduction en français disponible ici)

Following their “Open Letter to the Unvaccinated”, an expanding group of Canadian scholars has now written a letter addressing “the vaccinated”. The writers expose the divisiveness of vaccination status and denounce the resulting rift in society.

Giving up civil liberties in exchange for a false sense of safety is futile. We must not accept a descent into medical apartheid in Canada and around the world.

The letter appeals both to those who chose to take the vaccine and those who were coerced. It reflects on the broader implications of our actions in an effort to collaborate on a constructive path forward.

Open Letter to the Vaccinated

Prime Minister Trudeau recently warned that “there will be consequences” if federal employees do not comply with vaccine mandates. This is a voice of tyranny that has reverberated fear and heightened agitation across our country. It has launched our nation into deep division around mass vaccination and brought our collective recovery from this pandemic to a critical head. In fact, it forces us, as a country, to finally ask: indeed, what are those consequences?

What are the societal consequences of being divided along the lines of vaccination status? What are the consequences of mandating such an insufficiently tested medical intervention? How is this all supposed to end well?

The consequences will be dire, to be certain. And the consequences will affect all of us, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated alike.

Over the last six months, many of us made our decision to accept the vaccine in good faith – doing the right thing in order to work, travel and visit the people we love. Sadly, some of us have been pressured or coerced. And now, mounting evidence worldwide shows that these vaccines cannot stop the transmission of the virus and variants, yet vaccination mandates continue.

Meanwhile, the pharma corporations are earning billions of dollars of public money, and pushing to fast-track the vaccines towards full approval, without due process or public discussion. It is abundantly clear that when money and politics intertwine, science and ethics take a back seat.

Maybe you once resented those who hesitated to get the vaccine, as people who were not doing their part; but maybe it is time to consider that we have all become passengers on the same runaway train. The meaning of “fully vaccinated” is rapidly changing as leaders demand the next booster upgrade and threaten ousting us from public spaces if we don’t comply. So, if you are among the “fully vaccinated” today, by tomorrow you may become one of the “insufficiently vaccinated” and be coerced into taking another shot.

If history is any indication, this will not stop with barring admission to concerts or bars. When you can no longer buy food, access banking, vote in person or cross a provincial border, it will be crystal clear that the same discriminatory practices that you hope to abolish will be ever more firmly established. The real consequences await all of us.

Perhaps you’ve had your full round of doses and are now having doubts about whether to continue based on the alarming number of infections among the vaccinated. Or maybe you know someone who has been vaccine-injured or are concerned about the mounting death reports in conjunction with vaccinations.

We keep asking ourselves, “Why is the data not allowed to be scrutinized and why are independent experts being censored if they attempt to do just that?” It is incomprehensible, and decidedly un-Canadian, to see the silencing of highly regarded doctors and health scientists in our country and around the globe.

History has taught us that one-sided arguments and outlawed dissent are signs of totalitarianism lurking at the doorstep. Soon, asking questions will make you an enemy of the State. Mandating vaccines is a breaking point. “My body, my choice” has been one of the hallmarks of a free and democratic society, but this is changing. Canadians are being robbed of personal decision making.

With lockdowns already scheduled for the fall, and boosters at the ready, we are entering a watershed moment. Are we all willing to continue being injected indefinitely? In Canadian provinces and around the world vaccine passports are demonstrating our new, long-term relationship with medical coercion in exchange for basic freedoms. Thus far, each treatment has been promised to be the last, but it couldn’t be clearer that there is no end in sight.

And now they’re coming for our children.

With extremely low risk of becoming ill and practically no risk of dying from COVID-19, the mass vaccination of children and adolescents remains unwarranted. Lining up our healthy children for medical treatment was never part of the deal. Most disturbingly of all, we are being primed for mass vaccination campaigns in our schools that do not require parental consent. Does the government decide what is best for our children? Without question, the family ties that bind us are being undone. Justifiably, parents are appalled by this unprecedented overreach and are debating pulling their children out of schools.

Despite our best intentions, families are scarred, friends are divided, and partners are at odds with each other. We have been weakened by our division and manipulated through fear.

Just how far will we allow this to go? “All the way!” some of us declare. But “all the way” is a place we will never reach. We need to stop this medical catastrophe and face the truth: this isn’t about our health; it is about politics and it is about control.

The consequences of following Prime Minister Trudeau’s current orders are greater than his threatened consequences. We entered into this for one another, not for our politicians. We have done what we felt we had to do, and now we must say, ‘This is far enough, no more!’

Angela Durante, PhD
Denis Rancourt, PhD
Jan Vrbik, PhD
Laurent Leduc, PhD
Valentina Capurri, PhD
Amanda Euringer, Journalist
Claus Rinner, PhD
Maximilian C. Forte, PhD
Julie Ponesse, PhD
Michael Owen, PhD
Donald G. Welsh, PhD

OCLA researcher Dr. Denis Rancourt and several fellow Canadian academics penned an open letter to support those who have decided not to accept the COVID-19 vaccine.

The group emphasizes the voluntary nature of this medical treatment as well as the need for informed consent and individual risk-benefit assessment. They reject the pressure exerted by public health officials, the news and social media, and fellow citizens.

Control over our bodily integrity may well be the ultimate frontier of the fight to protect civil liberties. Read the letter below or as a PDF here.

Open Letter to the Unvaccinated

You are not alone! As of 28 July 2021, 29% of Canadians have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, and an additional 14% have received one shot. In the US and in the European Union, less than half the population is fully vaccinated, and even in Israel, the “world’s lab” according to Pfizer, one third of people remain completely unvaccinated. Politicians and the media have taken a uniform view, scapegoating the unvaccinated for the troubles that have ensued after eighteen months of fearmongering and lockdowns. It’s time to set the record straight.

It is entirely reasonable and legitimate to say ‘no’ to insufficiently tested vaccines for which there is no reliable science. You have a right to assert guardianship of your body and to refuse medical treatments if you see fit. You are right to say ‘no’ to a violation of your dignity, your integrity and your bodily autonomy. It is your body, and you have the right to choose. You are right to fight for your children against their mass vaccination in school.

You are right to question whether free and informed consent is at all possible under present circumstances. Long-term effects are unknown. Transgenerational effects are unknown. Vaccine-induced deregulation of natural immunity is unknown. Potential harm is unknown as the adverse event reporting is delayed, incomplete and inconsistent between jurisdictions.

You are being targeted by mainstream media, government social engineering campaigns, unjust rules and policies, collaborating employers, and the social-media mob. You are being told that you are now the problem and that the world cannot get back to normal unless you get vaccinated. You are being viciously scapegoated by propaganda and pressured by others around you. Remember; there is nothing wrong with you.

You are inaccurately accused of being a factory for new SARS-CoV-2 variants, when in fact, according to leading scientists, your natural immune system generates immunity to multiple components of the virus. This will promote your protection against a vast range of viral variants and abrogates further spread to anyone else.

You are justified in demanding independent peer-reviewed studies, not funded by multinational pharmaceutical companies. All the peer-reviewed studies of short-term safety and short-term efficacy have been funded, organized, coordinated, and supported by these for-profit corporations; and none of the study data have been made public or available to researchers who don’t work for these companies.

You are right to question the preliminary vaccine trial results. The claimed high values of relative efficacy rely on small numbers of tenuously determined “infections.” The studies were also not blind, where people giving the injections admittedly knew or could deduce whether they were injecting the experimental vaccine or the placebo. This is not acceptable scientific methodology for vaccine trials.

You are correct in your calls for a diversity of scientific opinions. Like in nature, we need a polyculture of information and its interpretations. And we don’t have that right now. Choosing not to take the vaccine is holding space for reason, transparency and accountability to emerge. You are right to ask, ‘What comes next when we give away authority over our own bodies?’

Do not be intimidated. You are showing resilience, integrity and grit. You are coming together in your communities, making plans to help one another and standing for scientific accountability and free speech, which are required for society to thrive. We are among many who stand with you.

Angela Durante, PhD
Denis Rancourt, PhD
Claus Rinner, PhD
Laurent Leduc, PhD
Donald Welsh, PhD
John Zwaagstra, PhD
Jan Vrbik, PhD
Valentina Capurri, PhD

Alexandria, VA — Daniel Everette Hale, a former Air Force intelligence analyst who pleaded guilty to sharing classified documents about US Military drone programs with a reporter was just sentenced to 45 months in Federal Prison. Ahead of his sentencing Hale’s lawyers submitted an 11-page letter handwritten by Daniel from his jail cell to US District Judge Liam O’Grady. Hale’s deeply personal letter paints a gruesome picture of the US Drone Program, and explains in detail how it was a crisis of conscience that led Hale to leak secrets about the program to a reporter.

Below is Daniel Everette Hale’s letter to Judge Liam O’Grady in its entirety:

Dear Judge O’Grady,

Former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Everette Hale, 2012

It is not a secret that I struggle to live with depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Both stem from my childhood experience growing up in a rural mountain community and were compounded by exposure to combat during military service. Depression is a constant. Though stress, particularly stress caused by war, can manifest itself at different times and in different ways. The tell-tale signs of a person afflicted by PTSD and depression can often be outwardly observed and are practically universally recognizable. Hard lines about the face and jaw. Eyes, once bright and wide, now deepset and fearful. And an inexplicably sudden loss of interest in things that used to spark joy. These are the noticeable changes in my demeanor marked by those who knew me before and after military service. To say that the period of my life spent serving in the United States Air Force had an impression on me would be an understatement. It is more accurate to say that it irreversibly transformed my identity as an American. Having forever altered the thread of my life’s story, weaved into the fabric of our nation’s history. To better appreciate the significance of how this came to pass, I would like to explain my experience deployed to Afghanistan as it was in 2012 and how it is I came to violate the Espionage Act, as a result.

In my capacity as a signals intelligence analyst stationed at Bagram Airbase, I was made to track down the geographic location of handset cellphone devices believed to be in the possession of so-called enemy combatants. To accomplish this mission required access to a complex chain of globe-spanning satellites capable of maintaining an unbroken connection with remotely piloted aircraft, commonly referred to as drones. Once a steady connection is made and a targeted cell phone device is acquired, an imagery analyst in the U.S., in coordination with a drone pilot and camera operator, would take over using information I provided to surveil everything that occurred within the drone’s field of vision. This was done, most often, to document the day-to-day lives of suspected militants. Sometimes, under the right conditions, an attempt at capture would be made. Other times, a decision to strike and kill them where they stood would be weighed.

Daniel Hale’s deeply personal letter paints a gruesome picture of the US Drone Program, and explains in detail how it was a crisis of conscience that led him to leak secrets about the program to a reporter.

The first time that I witnessed a drone strike came within days of my arrival to Afghanistan. Early that morning, before dawn, a group of men had gathered together in the mountain ranges of Patika provence around a campfire carrying weapons and brewing tea. That they carried weapons with them would not have been considered out of the ordinary in the place I grew up, muchless within the virtually lawless tribal territories outside the control of the Afghan authorities. Except that among them was a suspected member of the Taliban, given away by the targeted cell phone device in his pocket. As for the remaining individuals, to be armed, of military age, and sitting in the presence of an alleged enemy combatant was enough evidence to place them under suspicion as well. Despite having peacefully assembled, posing no threat, the fate of the now tea drinking men had all but been fulfilled. I could only look on as I sat by and watched through a computer monitor when a sudden, terrifying flurry of hellfire missiles came crashing down, splattering purple-colored crystal guts on the side of the morning mountain.

Since that time and to this day, I continue to recall several such scenes of graphic violence carried out from the cold comfort of a computer chair. Not a day goes by that I don’t question the justification for my actions. By the rules of engagement, it may have been permissible for me to have helped to kill those men—whose language I did not speak, customs I did not understand, and crimes I could not identify—in the gruesome manner that I did. Watch them die. But how could it be considered honorable of me to continuously have laid in wait for the next opportunity to kill unsuspecting persons, who, more often than not, are posing no danger to me or any other person at the time. Nevermind honorable, how could it be that any thinking person continued to believe that it was necessary for the protection of the United States of America to be in Afghanistan and killing people, not one of whom present was responsible for the September 11th attacks on our nation. Notwithstanding, in 2012, a full year after the demise of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, I was a part of killing misguided young men who were but mere children on the day of 9/11.

Nevertheless, in spite of my better instincts, I continued to follow orders and obey my command for fear of repercussion. Yet, all the while, becoming increasingly aware that the war had very little to do with preventing terror from coming into the United States and a lot more to do with protecting the profits of weapons manufacturers and so-called defense contractors. The evidence of this fact was laid bare all around me. In the longest or most technologically advanced war in American history, contract mercenaries outnumbered uniform wearing soldiers 2 to 1 and earned as much as 10 times their salary. Meanwhile, it did not matter whether it was, as I had seen, an Afghan farmer blown in half, yet miraculously conscious and pointlessly trying to scoop his insides off the ground, or whether it was an American flag-draped coffin lowered into Arlington National Cemetery to the sound of a 21-gun salute. Bang, bang, bang. Both served to justify the easy flow of capital at the cost of blood—theirs and ours. When I think about this I am grief-stricken and ashamed of myself for the things I’ve done to support it.

The most harrowing day of my life came months into my deployment to Afghanistan when a routine surveillance mission turned into disaster. For weeks we had been tracking the movements of a ring of car bomb manufacturers living around Jalalabad. Car bombs directed at US bases had become an increasingly frequent and deadly problem that summer, so much effort was put into stopping them. It was a windy and clouded afternoon when one of the suspects had been discovered headed eastbound, driving at a high rate of speed. This alarmed my superiors who believe he might be attempting to escape across the border into Pakistan.

A US drone strike on a civilian vehicle believed to be carrying a Taliban leader in Afghanistan

A drone strike was our only chance and already it began lining up to take the shot. But the less advanced predator drone found it difficult to see through clouds and compete against strong headwinds. The single payload MQ-1 failed to connect with its target, instead missing by a few meters. The vehicle, damaged, but still driveable, continued on ahead after narrowly avoiding destruction. Eventually, once the concern of another incoming missile subsided, the driver stopped, got out of the car, and checked himself as though he could not believe he was still alive. Out of the passenger side came a woman wearing an unmistakable burka. As astounding as it was to have just learned there had been a woman, possibly his wife, there with the man we intended to kill moments ago, I did not have the chance to see what happened next before the drone diverted its camera when she began frantically to pull out something from the back of the car.

A couple of days passed before I finally learned from a briefing by my commanding officer about what took place. There indeed had been the suspect’s wife with him in the car. And in the back were their two young daughters, ages 5 and 3 years old. A cadre of Afghan soldiers were sent to investigate where the car had stopped the following day. It was there they found them placed in the dumpster nearby. The eldest was found dead due to unspecified wounds caused by shrapnel that pierced her body. Her younger sister was alive but severely dehydrated. As my commanding officer relayed this information to us she seemed to express disgust, not for the fact that we had errantly fired on a man and his family, having killed one of his daughters; but for the suspected bomb maker having ordered his wife to dump the bodies of their daughters in the trash, so that the two of them could more quickly escape across the border. Now, whenever I encounter an individual who thinks that drone warfare is justified and reliably keeps America safe, I remember that time and ask myself how could I possibly continue to believe that I am a good person, deserving of my life and the right to pursue happiness.

One year later, at a farewell gathering for those of us who would soon be leaving military service, I sat alone, transfixed by the television, while others reminisced together. On television was breaking news of the president giving his first public remarks about the policy surrounding the use of drone technology in warfare. His remarks were made to reassure the public of reports scrutinizing the death of civilians in drone strikes and the targeting of American citizens. The president said that a high standard of “near certainty” needed to be met in order to ensure that no civilians were present. But from what I knew, of the instances where civilians plausibly could have been present, those killed were nearly always designated enemies killed in action unless proven otherwise. Nonetheless, I continued to heed his words as the president went on to explain how a drone could be used to eliminate someone who posed an “imminent threat” to the United States. Using the analogy of taking out a sniper, with his sights set on an unassuming crowd of people, the president likened the use of drones to prevent a would-be terrorist from carrying out his evil plot. But, as I understood it to be, the unassuming crowd had been those who lived in fear and the terror of drones in their skies and the sniper in this scenario had been me. I came to believe that the policy of drone assasiniation was being used to mislead the public that it keeps us safe, and when I finally left the military, still processing what I’d been a part of, I began to speak out, believing my participation in the drone program to have been deeply wrong.

I dedicated myself to anti-war activism, and was asked to partake in a peace conference in Washington, DC late November, 2013. People had come together from around the world to share experiences about what it is like living in the age of drones. Fazil bin Ali Jaber had journeyed from Yemen to tell us of what happened to his brother Salem bin Ali Jaber and their cousin Waleed. Waleed had been a policeman and Salem was a well-respected firebrand Imam, known for giving sermons to young men about the path towards destruction should they choose to take up violent jihad.

A US drone strike on a civilian vehicle, similar to the harrowing incident described by Fazil

One day in August 2012, local members of Al Qaeda traveling through Fazil’s village in a car spotted Salem in the shade, pulled up towards him, and beckoned him to come over and speak to them. Not one to miss an opportunity to evangelize to the youth, Salem proceeded cautiously with Waleed by his side. Fazil and other villagers began looking on from afar. Farther still was an ever present reaper drone looking too.

As Fazil recounted what happened next, I felt myself transported back in time to where I had been on that day, 2012. Unbeknownst to Fazil and those of his village at the time was that they had not been the only watching Salem approach the jihadist in the car. From Afghanistan, I and everyone on duty paused their work to witness the carnage that was about to unfold. At the press of a button from thousands of miles away, two hellfire missiles screeched out of the sky, followed by two more. Showing no signs of remorse, I, and those around me, clapped and cheered triumphantly. In front of a speechless auditorium, Fazil wept.

About a week after the peace conference I received a lucrative job offer if I were to come back to work as a government contractor. I felt uneasy about the idea. Up to that point, my only plan post military separation had been to enroll in college to complete my degree. But the money I could make was by far more than I had ever made before; in fact, it was more than any of my college-educated friends were making. So, after giving it careful consideration, I delayed going to school for a semester and took the job.

For a long time I was uncomfortable with myself over the thought of taking advantage of my military background to land a cushy desk job. During that time I was still processing what I had been through and I was starting to wonder if I was contributing again to the problem of money and war by accepting to return as a defense contractor. Worse was my growing apprehension that everyone around me was also taking part in a collective delusion and denial that was used to justify our exorbitant salaries, for comparatively easy labor. The thing I feared most at the time was the temptation not to question it.

Then it came to be that one day after work I stuck around to socialize with a pair of co-workers whose talented work I had come to greatly admire. They made me feel welcomed, and I was happy to have earned their approval. But then, to my dismay, our brand-new friendship took an unexpectedly dark turn. They elected that we should take a moment and view together some archived footage of past drone strikes. Such bonding ceremonies around a computer to watch so-called “war porn” had not been new to me. I partook in them all the time while deployed to Afghanistan. But on that day, years after the fact, my new friends gaped and sneered, just as my old one’s had, at the sight of faceless men in the final moments of their lives. I sat by watching too; said nothing and felt my heart breaking into pieces.

Daniel Everette Hale and Leila, December 2020

Your Honor, the truest truism that I’ve come to understand about the nature of war is that war is trauma. I believe that any person either called-upon or coerced to participate in war against their fellow man is promised to be exposed to some form of trauma. In that way, no soldier blessed to have returned home from war does so uninjured. The crux of PTSD is that it is a moral conundrum that afflicts invisible wounds on the psyche of a person made to burden the weight of experience after surviving a traumatic event. How PTSD manifests depends on the circumstances of the event. So how is the drone operator to process this? The victorious rifleman, unquestioningly remorseful, at least keeps his honor intact by having faced off against his enemy on the battlefield. The determined fighter pilot has the luxury of not having to witness the gruesome aftermath. But what possibly could I have done to cope with the undeniable cruelties that I perpetuated?

My conscience, once held at bay, came roaring back to life. At first, I tried to ignore it. Wishing instead that someone, better placed than I, should come along to take this cup from me. But this too was folly. Left to decide whether to act, I only could do that which I ought to do before God and my own conscience. The answer came to me, that to stop the cycle of violence, I ought to sacrifice my own life and not that of another person.

So, I contacted an investigative reporter, with whom I had had an established prior relationship, and told him that I had something the American people needed to know.

Respectfully,
**Daniel Hale**

We’ve been talking a lot lately at the Automatic Earth about programs to vaccinate children. It’s one more thing that people appear to blindly accept as necessary and beneficial to our societies. While the only consideration really should be how beneficial it is to the children themselves. Most people here, at least, seem to agree on that. But that’s just here.

The US, Germany, Canada, and soon France and Spain all have plans, some already have been rolled out, to carpet bomb the virus by going after their children, and there is no doubt many more countries will follow their example.

Since we know there is no medical reason to do so, we must ask what the ethical and legal aspects tell us. And I can’t find those. How and why can you justify injecting people against something that is no threat to them, with a substance that potentially is a much worse threat?

I dug up a graph again that I posted in April, which spells out the Covid risk for all age groups, including children:

If your chance of survival is 99.99996%, there is no risk. And you don’t need to be inoculated. That would -at best- be equivalent to keeping your kids home 24/7 because you are afraid of what might happen in traffic, or in social life with other kids, or some bogeyman. The risk is never zero, but close enough that we do not act on it, and call it common sense.

The arguments that are usually used are that 1) kids must be jabbed to protect others around them, and 2) that the vaccines have been tested and proven safe. Obviously, 1) is very curious, and never been used before, and 2) is simply a lie: vaccines need years of testing for side effects, not months, and certainly not weeks, as is now the case for the effects on children.

The “testing” is simply that if not too many people drop dead after 5 minutes, well, then it must be safe, as institutions like the European Medicines Agency solemnly declare. Completely ignoring potential long term effects, something that seems essential in mRNA “vaccines” because of their potential effects on fertility etc. We just don’t know, but we should before applying the substances. There’s a reason none of the vaccines have been approved.

As for that alleged safety, this is from the European version of the American VAERS system:

1,5 million adverse reactions, and those are just the ones that have been reported. Now, I don’t know how many people in Europe have been inoculated, but I bet you this is not a 99.99996% success story. The numbers of deaths are not, either.

So I was happy to see some actual common sense reported in a Dutch paper today (Google translated), where the Health Council in the Netherlands injects at least some nuance into the debate. For kids with underlying conditions, like severe obesity or lung- and heart problems, some protection might make sense. I still wouldn’t go with mRNA vaccines, I would use ivermectin instead, but I get the reasoning somewhat.

Health Council: Vaccinate Children From 12 Years Old With Medical Risk Against Corona

The Health Council advises the cabinet to vaccinate children from the age of 12 with a medical risk against the corona virus. Vaccinating all children in that age group, as is done in Germany, France and the US, for example, is not yet on the agenda. An opinion on this will follow in a few weeks. The current advice concerns children aged 12 to 17 who are annually invited for the flu shot and children with severe obesity. According to the Health Council, vaccination of these children provides significant health benefits, because they run a high risk of a serious course of Covid-19. According to chairman Bart-Jan Kullberg, that risk is twice as high as in healthy children.

The corona pandemic also indirectly has a major impact on children at medical risk. To avoid the risk of contamination, for example, they do not go to school or social activities. The Health Council also takes this ‘social-emotional impact’ into account. The council cannot estimate the number of children involved. “It concerns, for example, children with a heart or lung disease. There are also many small groups with a rare condition. General practitioners and paediatricians have a good picture of these groups,” says Kullberg.

_

An advice on vaccinating healthy children will only follow in a few weeks. The vast majority of children do not or hardly get sick after a corona infection. So far, almost 280,000 children in the Netherlands are known to have been infected. Usually they had only mild symptoms, such as a cold and cough. In the age group 0-12 years, 379 children were hospitalized. In the 13-17 age group, there have been 101 since September. A total of three children have died; all three had an underlying condition. Last month, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave the green light for the use of the Pfizer vaccine in children from 12 years of age. More and more countries are also vaccinating all healthy children over the age of 12 to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.

Vaccinating children from the age of 12 against the coronavirus can make a significant contribution to curbing the pandemic, OMT chairman Jaap van Dissel already suggested last weekend. According to him, it reduces the reproductive value (R) of the virus in winter by as much as this. about 15 percent. “That can be important to keep the spread low during that period as well.” In Germany, for example, teenagers will be vaccinated from next Monday, in France from mid-June and in Spain from mid-August. The US and Canada have been at it for weeks.

_

Vaccinating healthy children, who themselves hardly run the risk of becoming seriously ill after a corona infection, requires a ‘broader medical, epidemiological, ethical and legal consideration’, according to the Health Council. “It also depends on the phase of the pandemic,” Kullberg said. Because the number of infections is currently falling sharply and more than a million adults are now vaccinated every week, there is no reason to make that decision hastily, he says.

Now, mind you, that is the same country that admitted depriving children of their freedom, their development, and normal lives, in order to manipulate their parents. Talk about ethics. As I said a few days ago, “Holland closed schools not to protect children, but to make parents stay home. Think about how crazy that is.”

The Netherlands Used Children As A Weapon In The Fight Against Corona

Due to the Dutch corona policy to close schools and thus keep parents at home, children have been used as a means to fight the epidemic. Our cabinet receives that hard slap on the fingers today in the annual worldwide children’s rights report, the KidsRights Index. According to the makers, the Netherlands has set a very bad example internationally, by not even trying to keep schools open safely. With all the consequences that entails for the mental health of our youth. The corona guidelines from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child have also been neglected. Youth has not been given any priority in Dutch policy, it sounds.

Statements by corona minister Hugo de Jonge, dated mid-December 2020, are presented as proof. Then De Jonge indeed mentioned on television as the reason why the cabinet decided to close the schools, that parents with children sitting at home will therefore start working from home more quickly. When parents take their children to school, that is another moment of contact, De Jonge explained at the time. “And we also learned from the first wave, when the schools were also closed, that the fact that primary education does not provide physical education also ensures that parents adhere better to another advice, namely: work from home as much as possible. ”, said the minister at the time.

“Children’s rights have been put in second place by the cabinet during corona time,” Marc Dullaert, founder of the international children’s rights organization KidsRights, now told this site. “They were the ankle bracelet for parents. These had to be kept at home in order to effectively fight the epidemic. At the expense of their mental health.” In the first phase, when everyone was looking for the right approach, this was understandable according to Dullaert. ,,But De Jonge’s statements came at a time when it was really no longer acceptable, in the second phase. And other countries – such as Belgium and Sweden – have done everything they can to keep the schools open, so there were alternatives on the table.”

Staying on topic, I liked this from the Conservative Woman site in Britain, with perhaps the best argument against child vaccination: “The sooner most of us are exposed to it, ideally in childhood, the sooner it will cease to be a major problem..”

Why Subject Our Children To The Risk Of Death From Vaccination?

All non-corrupted scientific commentators have known from the very start that this pandemic only ends one way: SARS-CoV-2 is going to become an endemic virus. It will always be with us. The sooner most of us are exposed to it, ideally in childhood, the sooner it will cease to be a major problem. High-risk individuals can choose to take a vaccine. Ivermectin and vitamin D can be used to prevent infection and treat confirmed cases. As we have seen, the argument that children must take vaccines so that we can achieve herd immunity is utterly false. Only those completely ignorant of virology and immunology would even attempt to make it. That brings us back to the original argument for vaccinating children against Covid: to protect them from the severe disease.

If this is the only reason to vaccinate children, there is only one calculation that parents should make: Is the risk from Covid greater than the risk from the vaccine? The present Covid vaccines being administered in the West are based on experimental technologies that are being used under emergency use authorisations (EUAs). Full safety studies will not be completed until 2023. The Covid vaccines were all created in the last year and we have no medium-term or long-term data on them. We don’t know if they will have an effect on children’s reproductive organs and fertility. We don’t know if they will produce auto-immune diseases. And we don’t know if they will lead to ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement) upon re-exposure to the virus (causing more severe illness).

_

We do know that the vaccines produce a range of cardiovascular and neurological events including strokes, myocarditis, pericarditis and paralysis in a significant number of people. In the small US state of Connecticut at least 18 children and young adults have come down with myocarditis, an extremely serious and sometimes fatal condition involving inflammation of the heart muscle (and they’ve only just started vaccinating children there). The Israel Ministry of Health has reported that the incidence of myocarditis for vaccine recipients is between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 6,000 in young men.

_

In Canada (population 38 million) only 11 children have died from Covid since the start of the pandemic. In the UK (pop 68 million) 32 children have died. It is nearly certain that all of them had one or more severe comorbidities. The fact is, most children brush off Covid without even knowing they’ve had it. For all intents and purposes, Covid poses zero risk to healthy children.

And Michael Curzon:

Child Vaccination: Who’s Selfish Now?

A number of school leaders have swung into action following the approval of the vaccination of children against Covid (a disease which almost all children aren’t at risk from) using the Pfizer vaccine (trials of which only included 1,134 children). It wasn’t very long ago that the establishment line was: if you don’t get a Covid vaccine, you are selfish. Even the Queen (disappointingly) joined in with this line [..]. But now, adult advisers to the Government suggest that children should be vaccinated not to protect children but to protect…themselves. Professor Anthony Harnden, the Deputy Chairman of the Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, says:

‘I think the vast majority of benefit won’t be to children, it will be an indirect benefit to adults in terms of preventing transmission and protecting adults who haven’t been immunised, for whatever reason haven’t responded to the vaccine and therefore that presents quite a lot of ethical dilemmas as to whether you should vaccinate children to protect adults.’ He notes that children themselves are ‘in the main’ not at risk from Covid. Over half of the adult population has been fully vaccinated (with seventy-five per cent having received at least one dose of a vaccine) and Covid deaths, while still exaggerated, have flattened. There is no reason to vaccinate most children and, given the potential side effects, many not to do so. If the Government bottles it on the vaccination of children, it is they who are being selfish.

The reactions to the virus are many times more dangerous than the virus itself. Because the reactions have been amplified by fear. Time to shake it off. But for that to happen, we need politics and media to change, because they’re doing the amplifying. Problem is, fear sells.