Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 132

[ecosophia]

We are now in the third year of these open posts. As the phrase "died suddenly" repeats in the mass media like a mantra, statistics for work days lost to illness and all-cause mortality mount up in heavily vaccinated nations, and more and more ugly facts about the official response to Covid spill out into public, we are entering what may well turn out to be the most difficult period of the Covid disaster -- the phase in which denial rises in lockstep with the death rate, and a great many people try not to admit what has been done to them by the people and institutions they trusted. It could get ugly, folks.

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. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Comments

[charlieobert]

"If those are persistent, any medical student knows to worry about TB or cancer. She better be telling her doctor about this."

Pardon my cynicism here - where do you find a trustworthy doctor in those areas?

I watched my wife go through the cancer meat grinder in our medical system, and I was almost thrown into it myself. From first-hand experience, if I were to deal with cancer again in my life, the last person I would come anywhere near is a standard oncologist.

There are many other avenues I would explore first, and we've talked about some of them on this list. Unfortunately, the odds that this woman would be open to anything other than the official medical party line is vanishingly low.

[(Anonymous)]

Cancer, irrespective of treatment, needs to be diagnosed before it gets too advanced; IOW you don't want to find it too late.

You state "there are many other avenues I would explore first". Well, you have touched upon the subject of Medical Decision Making, and I think your approach is unsound: already you tempt the risk of being too late; and persistent night sweats and chills are common initial symptoms of cancer or tuberculosis. So what should a doctor do, whistle in the dark and look for minor ailments? No. Any doctor worth his/her salt will bar to the door to big downsides first, especially with the clock ticking.

Cynical you may be, but doctors do look after their self-interest (I'm a doctor myself in case you didn't know), and when there are downsides like TB (tuberculosis) or cancer on the table, risk management for the doctor and patient coincide exactly.

--Lunar Apprentice

[(Anonymous)]

Night sweats can also be caused by endometriosis. I get them during my period. Have for decades.

[(Anonymous)]

As does my wife! You're not the only one.

[charlieobert]

You're not the first doctor to give me some form of that lecture and warning. I've heard it many times over the years.

Yes, there is a risk to not seeing doctors and getting a symptom checked, and yes you have a point about early diagnosis.

You need to balance that against the risk of seeing a doctor.

I decided many years ago that I would avoid doctors as much as I could, and do all I could to care for my own health. I made that choice back in my 20's and I am convinced that I am much healthier now than I would have been if I'd decided otherwise. I think I made the right choice.

When you're dealing with the possibility of night sweats meaning cancer, yes, getting it checked out could be useful. You then need to balance that against the treatment that will likely be "recommended" - and you know as well as I do that it is very difficult to say no to a doctor's "recommendation".

In your case, part of your risk management as a doctor in the US today is what happens to you if you consider anything other than the standard cancer treatments - consider anything else and you risk losing your license. So no, your risk management and your patient's do not exactly coincide.

I've seen the standard cancer treatments up front and close. If I get cancer again I would much rather die of the disease than the treatment.

[(Anonymous)]

How did I "lecture" you? Did I write anything other than to inform you of how a doctor thinks about risk management?

You wrote "In your case, part of your risk management as a doctor in the US today is what happens to you if you consider anything other than the standard cancer treatments - consider anything else and you risk losing your license. So no, your risk management and your patient's do not exactly coincide."

That is false.

I said nothing about treatment. The subject is risk management as it pertains to diagnostic evaluation only. A positive diagnosis for cancer (or whatever) enables the patient to make informed decisions, including whether to seek care outside of the medical system. Once the diagnosis is made, the patient is free to take the doctor's treatment advice or seek other care. A doctor is legally and morally obliged to offer the standard of care; you are the buyer, and you can take it or leave it. A doctor is not liable for what an informed patient decides.

You also wrote: "Yes, there is a risk to not seeing doctors and getting a symptom checked, and yes you have a point about early diagnosis.

You need to balance that against the risk of seeing a doctor."

Do you really believe that seeing a doctor to evaluate a symptom carries the same risk as possibly missing a cancer? Are you joking?

God takes care of fools. Smart people have to take care of themselves.

--Lunar Apprentice

[(Anonymous)]

My brother steadfastly refused to get pains in the 'lower stomach' area looked at.
And when he did it was diagnosed as 'too late.'
Well, he's gone.
Cancer.


A family member pushes me to get some weird moles looked at. I better hop to it though I haven't seen my dr., and rather wouldn't, since this all began.

[scotlyn]

If I may.

This reply is BOTH for you, Charlie Obert, and for you, Lunar Apprentice.

I want to give you BOTH appreciation for what you are saying here. Each of you speaks from experience, and the rest of us are better off to have heard what each of you has to say.

I would not like EITHER of you to leave this thread feeling unheard.

For myself, I have not needed to attend a doctor for many years, but I am happy to have a local practitioner who I regard as an excellent clinician, should I ever need to have a condition diagnosed. Due to our past history with one another, this doctor will certainly expect that, having been diagnosed, I will go my own way, and take all medical advice "under advisement". I TOTALLY hear Lunar Apprentice on this matter!

Still, I tend to avoid "wellness checkups" and other unnecessary contacts with the medical system, because they present too many opportunities for pharmaceutical opportunism, and I TOTALLY hear Charlie on this. It is seldom that a person can get OFF the interventionist road, once they have got on it, and tolerably often leads to the contradictory outcome "the illness was cured, but the patient died."

[charlieobert]

I appreciate your note.

"but I am happy to have a local practitioner who I regard as an excellent clinician, should I ever need to have a condition diagnosed."

I do not, and my experience with first-line non-specialist practitioners is, um, less than stellar. If/when I need a doctor's diagnosis I have to count on a great deal of prayer before and after the session, and much research on my own. Sigh...

[(Anonymous)]

Again, now with more detail... totally hear you. I myself have many decades experience to look back on and my personal sharp-eyed review of all those experiences has been instructive for me. Conclusion: With the exception of 3 surgeries, and some selected dental work, all the multitudes of tests and prescriptions and various other medical procedures I've had over the years I would have been definitively better off without. Most caused me mainly inconvenience, but some caused me serious harm.

As you say, "Yes, there is a risk to not seeing doctors and getting a symptom checked, and yes you have a point about early diagnosis. You need to balance that against the risk of seeing a doctor."

OUO

[(Anonymous)]

For what it's worth, I've never understood the people who completely reject all of mainstream medicine any better than I understand the people who slavishly follow every official mainstream medical recommendation.

Medicine is a business. Like almost any business, it produces some useful products and services, but also produces (and tries to sell) lots of stuff you probably don't really need - and too much of anything is usually bad for you anyway. Doctors provide a service, and are influenced by a range of factors, including their own skills, knowledge, and ethics, as well as their own ignorance, prejudices, and group think - with some variations between individuals, obviously.

When purchasing any other product or service, it's considered normal to look into it, do some reading, get multiple opinions from people who have used the product/service, talk to a knowledgeable and experienced service provided, maybe get second opinions, and then evaluate your options and decide what you do or don't think is right for you.

I don't see why medicine is any different. And yet some people think doctors are infallible gods, while others won't go near them at all. Neither makes much sense to me.

[stubborn_ass]

I think you're missing how the incentive structure has corrupted the western medical system, especially the US version. Think of the doctors graduating with a ton of student debt.... there is little incentive to rock the boat with unorthodox treatments that actually work, whereas the income stream is guaranteed if they follow the prescribed protocols (Remdisivor anyone?) and get paid while protected from lawsuits.

Plus big pharma can easily track which doctors are prescribing their drugs in quantity... so those doctors get the nice paid holidays to attend 'seminars' and get nice gifts on a regular basis. FDA and CDC are now totally bought and paid for... it's a corruption process that has run its full course, so really, you still want to trust the system now? That kinda implies not really following the events of the past 3 years.

Plus the fear factor is used to short-circuit most people's critical thinking (if they had any to start with)... once they get a cancer diagnosis, the chemo gravy train comes into play.... most people don't realize how bad chemo gets and the bad recovery rates for many types of cancer with conventional therapies - unless they've spent time looking after cancer patients in their own family before. That is the biggest ongoing grift going on... as the anti-cancer properties of Fenben and VIM have been known since the 60's and 70's. Once you see that, you can't unsee it.

Since we can count on the fingers of our hands how many doctors in each country dared to speak up against the jabs and how even fewer dared to advocate for the stuff that actually worked against the coof (VIM etc), you still think most doctors have integrity at this point? By their continued compliance and silence, the doctors that you seem to trust are acrueing pretty negative karma at a very fast rate. For my own health, both physical and spiritual, I would choose to avoid. But I'm not stopping you from your choices, just explaining why your "business" reasoning no longer fits.

[charlieobert]

Now it's my turn to say, I hear you and I agree with you.

Also, to be very clear, I do not "totally reject all mainstream medicine". Nowhere near. That's a false binary split.

From experience, I use doctor's visits very, very sparingly - and when I do, I go in completely prepared and ready to resist any attempt to push me into taking a "recommended" treatment. For instance, the last time I had to consult a doctor about possible surgery, I brought a friend to take notes, prepared a list of questions, had my nurse-daughter conference call in to join us, recorded the session, and made very clear at the beginning that I was not making any decisions that day. I was very fortunate that this doctor was the kind of person who appreciated the care I was taking and how much I had thought it through.

There are a lot of very good, caring and helpful people in the medical system, and I give them a lot of credit. My nurse-daughter is such a person - and she is completely on board with all vaxxes, masking, social distancing, frequent tests and quarantining, and she dismisses all evidence the vaxxes are not "safe and effective" as fringe disinformation.

So no, I do not dismiss all mainstream medical care. I use it - but very occasionally, and very, very cautiously.

[(Anonymous)]

OMG, how could I have forgotten the C19 vex's?!? And the equally experimental C19 tests with undisclosed false-positive rates? All of my discussion above has its referents in the pre C19-vex era. Yes, the medical profession crumped and sold its soul (and its collective brain) over the C19 vex's. I refused the vex for myself, and got locked out most of the medical system. I realistically can only see Worker's Comp patients now, and do exams for commercial driver medical certificates.

I have an opinion as to how and why the medical profession crumped so abjectly, but that's another essay. Not today.

--Lunar Apprentice

[charlieobert]

First of all, I want to say that I appreciate this dialog we're having. I appreciate your sincerity and your integrity. I am also glad for the chance to clearly think through and review this whole area of health care.

You talk about health care being corrupt since covid, and you're right. I maintain that the same patterns of corruption are there in other areas of health care, and have been for a long time.

I talk about cancer since I have first-hand experience there. I see the following patterns:

- mis-diagnosis and over-diagnosis.

- strongly and coercively pushing, and even mandating, treatments that are patented, expensive, toxic and highly debilitating. Over-treating.

- dismissing, ignoring, or attacking, ridiculing and attempting to ban, other possible treatments that show great promise, and are available and affordable.

- using scare stories and shaming for anyone who dares question the standard protocol.

That is point-for-point exactly the same pattern we see with covid. And, it has been in place for decades.

---
Yes, there is the possibility of using the regular medical system just for diagnosis. In my experience, to do that takes a lot of awareness and research, and a good amount of planning, inner strength and integrity, to resist the heavy coercion you are likely to get to accept "the doctor's orders" - and there is a reason they use the word Order.

For what it's worth, I've had long conversations on this topic with my nurse-daughter, and she completely agrees with me about how hard it is to avoid being coerced into treatment. Apparently there's a label they put on your chart if you dare question a doctor's orders - I forget the exact name but it means something like, Uncooperative, or Troublemaker. C'est Moi.

When I said that you have to weigh the cost of seeing a doctor, you asked if I was joking. No, I am not, and I hope this post helps to clarify why.

--Lord Elrondor LionFart

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, that is generally how I proceed as well. (I wasn't suggesting that you operated on a binary, just that some people do.)

I go to a doctor who I like relatively well; he's an older guy, trained in India, and I've generally found him respectful of people rejecting recommended treatments, at least so far. I see him every two years or so, mainly for bloodwork, which caught a vitamin deficiency for which I am now taking natural supplements. When he recommended a colonoscopy, I politely declined, and that was that. When a walk-in clinic insisted that my sinus infection was just a cold (I have had sinus infections before, and I knew what it was) and my natural treatments weren't working, he gave me antibiotics that did work. Etc. I also got a tetanus shot in the ER years ago because I didn't want to take chances with a dirty puncture wound - but I reject all other vaccines. So on and so forth.

I think it's possible to approach mainstream medicine with a "use sparingly, buyer beware" attitude.

[(Anonymous)]

I am aware of all of the above. That's why I don't automatically "trust doctors"; I approach what any medical professional says with a grain of salt and research everything on my own. But I also know from experience that sometimes mainstream medicine has worked for me (some of the examples I gave below include using a doctor for antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection when natural treatments failed, and using routine bloodwork to catch a vitamin deficiency that I now treat with natural supplements). I have also turned down any number of "recommended" services over the years with a polite "no thank you".

Obviously, your mileage may vary. My point was just that I don't see the whole thing as such a binary - blindly trust the doctors, or never touch a single product or service they provide.

[(Anonymous)]

Totally hear you.

Orange Undulating Ogre

[charlieobert]

Thanks - it's good to know I'm not alone.

Lord Elrondor LionFart