Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 53

[ecosophia]

As we move into the second year of these open posts, it's pretty clear that the official narrative is cracking as the toll of deaths and injuries from the Covid vaccines rises steadily and the vaccines themselves demonstrate their total uselesness at preventing Covid infection or transmission. It's still important to keep watch over the mis-, mal- and nonfeasance of our self-proclaimed health gruppenfuehrers, and the disastrous results of the Covid mania, but I think it's also time to begin thinking about what might be possible as the existing medical industry reels under the impact of its own self-inflicted injuries. 

(Yes, the change in image theme reflects that; the earlier sequence served its purpose. With a nod to El Gato Malo (1, 2, 3), the posts to come will be headed by thoughtful memes relevant to the Covid mess. Yes, I'll take nominations -- you can post links in the thread.)

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before: 

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

With that said, the floor is open for discussion. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It's never far from my mind, as a person with insulin-dependent diabetes. Without modern medicine, I have no doubt I'd have died or slowly decayed years ago (from blindness, gangrene, or dialysis- all are common with poorly controlled diabetes.)

I am thus caught between a rock and a hard place. Nothing "alternative" can replace my insulin and the associated gadgetry, and thus I'm inevitably dependent on a bunch of spineless weasels of the allopathic variety. But even docs I once considered good skeptical scientists drank the vax Kool-aid enthusiastically. I trust no one in a white coat any longer.

So what do I do? I ignore the pitches that clearly come from Big pHarma. And I try to stockpile as much as I can, but that's of limited utility. Should push really come to shove, I suppose it could be a useful motivation knowing that I have nothing to lose.

[(Anonymous)]

Not a doctor and obviously no knowledge of your situation beyond what you’ve mentioned, but there are some interesting findings with the carnivore diet. Any dietary stability is likely to help if insulin is harder to get.

Long term I also see a possibility for plasma and low tech options. I.e. they’ve used blood plasma for diphtheria and ant-venom as well as some diseases. What I like about that is it’s evolving medicine. Someone fights off a disease, shares plasma and others fight it off too. Evolving. As are bacteriophages, mushrooms and herbs.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a VERY difficult problem! I remember (many years ago) that there were few types of insulin-- R (regular) and N (nph - 'neutral protamine hagedorn'), and L (lente - long-acting). It was available in 40 units/ml and 100 units/ml, and ALL of it came from the pancreases of pigs and cows--byproducts of the meat-packing industry.
The first 50 years of insulin were so successful that the demand for insulin globally eventually used nearly every pig and cow pancreas available. We avoided the problem of 'Peak Pancreas' by the development of recombinant DNA insulins, ie., deriving insulins from genetically modified, very sick E. Coli bacteria that can't survive outside of specially-controlled environments.
Going into collapse, it would be possible to derive Regular insulin from cow-and pig-pancreases again, without too much trouble, but this is not a great solution:
The original insulin product was the color of muddy tea and had 40-units per ml. Lots of skin reactions from the extra stuff in it, but still a life-saving product....
There are very few manufacturers of the recombinant-DNA-insulins that almost every diabetic uses, and they are VERY heavily dependent on high technology, reliable electricity, cheap and disposable medical supplies and refrigerated cheap global shipping.
It would make the most sense to put up some regional manufacturers of insulin--expensive now, and likely impossible later--Perhaps this could happen in India or China, but there would need to be some very large changes in many levels of government to see such things in the US and Canada.

I think that if you can stockpile several months of insulin, use the oldest stock first, it might be enough to get you through severe supply disruptions on the way down...

[dendroica]

This strikes me as a technology that should be possible to maintain pretty far into the decline ahead of us. The engineered bacterial strains already exist, so even if we lose the capacity for genetic engineering we can keep them alive and preserved indefinitely in frozen stocks.

"Controlled environments" are really just sterile culture (e.g. laminar flow hoods and pressure canners/autoclaves), nutrient management, and temperature control. Purification is probably the most difficult step, though there is a lot of low-tech chemistry and chromatography that is surprisingly effective.

I have no doubt that it would be possible to grow these bacteria and harvest insulin on the scale of a microbrewery or even in a well-equipped garage. Of course it would be all manner of illegal, but at whatever point the alternative is death I hope that some out-of-work microbiologists and biochemists will be up for the challenge.

[(Anonymous)]

My sister is type 1 diabetic, so I researched this in some depth. Even 'good enough' animal pancreas insulin is fairly easy to make and it's been done at scale under very tough conditions before (by highschool biology teachers in WW2 Japanese occupied China). It's basically a repeated process of removing contaminants using washings of acids, neutralising the strained solution and then concentrating the remainder. Totally illegal to distribute of course but there are quite a few very detailed process descriptions in old journal articles up to the late 60s/early 70s. The teachers in China apparently also dramtically stretched their stocks over hundreds of diabetics and made it much safer in the absence of blood sugar testing by getting them all on ketogenic/low carb diets (must have been a nightmare given the conditions).

Long term, the bigger problem seems testing strips. Urine testing is not so hard to solve but much less useful than blood sugar testing.

[(Anonymous)]

(OP here)
Iirc, the pork/beef insulins I once used were made from fetal animals. The digestive enzymes made by the pancreas also destroy insulin, but pancreases in embryos have fer less of these substances to bother the extraction and purification of insulin. How many people these days could even identify the pancreas in a freshly slaughtered animal, let alone reliably extract insulin? Not me!

My original post collapsed all the associated diabetes tech into "associated gadgetry," That includes test strips, pumps, tubes and infusion sets, cgms, cgm sensors, cgm transmitters, their batteries (if they are even replaceable.) Plus other drugs and treatments that ameliorate those awful complications. It's not just insulin, it's a huge technical ecosystem we have now and take for granted. It's led to amazing improvements in health, for those with the money and motivation. (It's also very profitable for the manufacturers, as long as the supply chains are all solid. However...)

Mark, I agree that *in theory*, the GMO bacteria that make insulin now could continue to do so on a smaller, regional scale. There was even a site called "OpenInsulin.org" in the Bay Area working to lower the obscene cost of insulin using open source material and volunteers. But afaik, they never made much progress. Covid happened, and there's no money in cheap insulin.

To me, all this makes it clear that it's a very fragile system, esp. with energy, logistics, and food looking kinda dicey these days. Aside from not outright dying from dka, just the insulin is not going to mean much. After the first big leg down on collapse stabilizes, perhaps we'd be able to reconstitute something more appropriate and regional.

Right now though, I am just metaphorically enjoying the high tech view from this magic hovercraft I've been lucky enough to catch a ride on by an accident of birth. Its fuel gauge is looking awfully empty.