Category Archives: Health

Please pray for DCG’s dad

After three weeks in Eastern Washington taking care of her elderly father who was stricken with COVID-19, with countless visits to ER, DCG is safely back home, thanks to your prayers.

Although her father’s pneumonia and sepsis infection had subsided, he will be undergoing vascular surgery today.

From DCG: I spoke with my father this morning and he was pretty alert and so ready for surgery! His blood cultures are fine, he’s COVID-19 negative, and the surgeon has determined his heart and lungs are good to go for surgery. My sister is in town and will be able to see him after surgery.

Please say a prayer that the surgery goes well and his recovery be swift.

Thank you!

Also, would you like an ongoing Prayer Post for your prayer intentions? Let me know.

~E

Friday Funnies!

~E

Govt & CDC are lying about vaccine and Ivermectin – Why?

Wayne Allyn Root writes in Townhall, Sept. 5, 2021:

It’s been quite a week. I’ve been in the media business for decades and I’ve never before witnessed such lies, exaggeration and outright fraud. All with the intent to force everyone to be vaccinated. The question is why?

Let’s start with the vaccine itself. The results in Israel prove what a sham, charade and fraud this all is. The U.S. government and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention argue that the vaccine is our only chance to survive. And that people are hospitalized and dying with COVID-19 because they are unvaccinated.

Both arguments are pure fraud.

First, are you aware that anyone who dies within 14 days of getting vaccinated is considered “unvaccinated”? No wonder they claim everyone who is dying is unvaccinated. If you die from COVID-19, whether you’re vaccinated or unvaccinated, they just call you unvaccinated.

If a businessperson in the private sector tried that scam, they’d spend the next 20 years in prison for fraud.

The CDC has also been using stats of COVID-19 deaths going back to January to make the claim that the deaths are almost exclusively among the unvaccinated. That’s because earlier in the year almost everyone was unvaccinated. That’s called rigging the numbers. The CDC must be using the same Democrats who rigged and stole the 2020 election.

Worst of all, the media has blacked out the developing disaster in Israel. Israel is the most vaccinated country in the world. They all got the Pfizer vaccine. At first, deaths and hospitalizations went to almost zero. Israel declared victory over COVID-19.

At this moment, 0.2% of the entire population of Israel is catching COVID-19 each day.

This past week was the worst week for COVID-19 in Israel EVER. Israel is setting records for vaccinated people in the hospital. Deaths are skyrocketing.

It’s so bad, no-mask, no-lockdown Sweden has just banned travelers from Israel. Many EU countries are following suit.

The vaccine isn’t just failing, it’s a spectacular fail. It wore off. It no longer works. And just as my holistic doctor friends predicted, it makes the next wave far worse. These doctors say vaccinated people are far more contagious; they carry heavier viral loads and are far more susceptible to getting severe illness than someone with “natural immunity.”

This experiment with an “experimental, emergency-use-only” vaccine is a great big failure. A dangerous and deadly failure.

But at this very moment, Biden, the CDC and the U.S. media are pushing the vaccine, vaccine mandates and vaccine passports harder than ever. The question is why?

Why is forcing every American to get vaccinated so important at the exact moment Israel proves the vaccine they’re pushing is a dramatic, dangerous and deadly failure?

See also “Covid vaccine follies: Unvaxxed scapegoated; vaxxed vulnerable to more severe diseases

~E

Please pray for DCG and her dad

DCG will be absent from BodyandSoul for a while because she is in Eastern Washington taking care of her father who came down with the demon COVID19 virus.

Her father had been sick all last week and went to ER last Friday. Fortunately, his vitals, oxygen level and breathing were all good, and was sent home.

But then, being very weak, he fell and went back to ER. Fortunately, nothing was broken, and his vitals and breathing were also good, but he is still very weak and sleeps all day.

DCG asks for our prayers.

Please pray that her father recovers quickly, that DCG remains healthy and be returned safely to us soon.

Thank you,

~E

Sunday Devotional: Be doers of the word, not hypocrites

Mark 7:6

He [Jesus the Christ] responded,
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me….”

Reading the New Testament makes evident how much our Lord hates hypocrites. See Luke 6:42, 12:56; Mark 7:6; and Matthew 6:2, 6:5-6, 6:16, 7:5, 15:7, 16:3, 23:13, 23:14, 23:23, 23:25, 23:27, 23:28, 23:33, 24:51,

The dictionary defines “hypocrite” as “a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.

Even worse are preachy hypocrites who “Do as I say, not as I do.”

In the coronavirus pandemic, so many prominent Democrats are shown to be hypocrites. While they preach to us — whom Katie Couric called “the great unwashed” — that we must wear masks, they themselves don’t.

The latest example is host of CBS late-night talk-show host Stephen Colbert.

On August 21, 2021, while thousands of Americans were (and many still are) trapped in Afghanistan, at the mercy of the brutal Taliban, Colbert was dancing maskless with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY-D). (Breitbart)

https://youtu.be/2pXYDM9y_qU?t=77

But it’s not just Democrats who are hypocrites.

We all are, if we say pretend to having a virtue, while saying one thing but doing another.

James 1:21-22

Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you
and is able to save your souls.
Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.

And may the peace and love of Jesus Christ our Lord be with you,

~E

Covid vaccine follies: Unvaxxed scapegoated; vaxxed vulnerable to more severe diseases

Americans who decline to be vaccinated with Covid-19 vaccines are being scapegoated for the Delta-variant infections.

(1) CBS reports that in an interview with “Face the Nation” on August 1, 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Biden, said that Americans who remain unvaccinated against the coronavirus are “propagating” the latest outbreak of casesof the highly contagious Delta variant. Fauci said: “We have 100 million people in this country…who are eligible to be vaccinated, who are not vaccinated. We’ve really got to get those people…vaccinated because they are the ones that are propagating this outbreak.

(2) Actress Jennifer Anniston went so far as to cut off some of her friends who refused to be vaccinated because, she maintains, “if you have the variant, you are still able to give it to me.” (BBC)

(3) Actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called mask-averse Americans “schmucks” and said to them to “screw your freedom.” Well, there are consequences to Schwarzenegger’s name calling — he just lost a sponsor for his annual bodybuilding event known as the Arnold Classic. REDCON1, a sports nutrition brand, confirmed they’ve pulled out from Schwarzenegger’s event as well as any others he’s involved in. “We elected to discontinue support due to Arnold’s comment, ‘Screw Your Freedoms,’” a spokesperson for the company said. (Fox News)

But the testimony from the science so revered by Fauci and the Left says otherwise.

An article in the journal Nature, dated August 12, 2021, says:

[R]eports from various countries seem to confirm what scientists feared after the variant tore through India with alarming speed in April and May: Delta is more likely than other variants to spread through vaccinated people.

Data from COVID-19 tests in the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore are showing that vaccinated people who become infected with Delta SARS-CoV-2 can carry as much virus in their nose as do unvaccinated people. This means that despite the protection offered by vaccines, a proportion of vaccinated people can pass on Delta, possibly aiding its rise….

An August report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that following large gatherings in the beach town [Provincetown, Massachusetts], nearly three-quarters of 469 new COVID-19 cases that occurred in the state were in vaccinated people2. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated people had comparably…high viral loads, and of the 133 samples sequenced, 90% were identified as Delta….

In Houston, Texas…, about 17% of Delta cases are in vaccinated people since March 2021, nearly three times the rate of breakthrough infections compared with all other variants combined. Patients with Delta SARS-CoV-2 also stayed in hospital slightly longer than did people infected with other variants. “There’s potentially a slightly different biology to the [Delta] infection,” says James Musser, a molecular pathologist and director of the hospital’s Center for Molecular and Translational Human Infectious Diseases Research. His team found that Ct levels [viral loads] were similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated people3.

However, vaccinated people with Delta might remain infectious for a shorter period, according to researchers in Singapore…. [And, for that reason] Paul Elliott, an epidemiologist at Imperial [College London], says…“We think it’s really, really important to get as many people double vaccinated, and particularly those younger groups, as soon as possible.

And so, those who have been injected with the Covid vaccines carry as many Delta viruses as the unvaccinated, which means the vaxxed are infecting the unvaxxed just as much as the reverse. But the unvaxxed are being blamed for the Delta breakout, and are treated worse than black people during segregation:

  • Restaurants will not admit the unvaxxed.
  • Employees are being forced to be vaxxed or risk losing their jobs.
  • Schools and universities are forcing all their students to be vaxxed.
  • In California, per a health order from the state, hospital or skilled nursing facility visitors must provide proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours in order to enter these facilities to visit/accompany a patient.

The push to jab the unvaxxed is intensifying, despite the fact that:

(1) The vaccines are losing their effectiveness against the Delta Covid-mutation, with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine waning faster than others. A UK study found that although the Pfizer vaccine was 90% effective against Delta infections one month after the second dose, this declined to 78% after three months, a loss of 12 percentage points. (Statistica)

That is why the push is now on for a “booster,” i.e., a third vaccination.

Since viruses, including the Covid-19 coronavirus, continue to mutate, this means that those who have been vaccinated will likely have to get “booster” shots, again and again, as new Covid mutations appear.

(2) The absolute risk reduction (ARR), which is the difference between Covid attack rates with and without a vaccine, is miniscule (The Lancet):

  • 1-3% for the AstraZeneca–Oxford vaccine.
  • 1-2% for the Moderna–NIH.
  • 1-2% for the J&J.
  • 0.93% for the Gamaleya.
  • 0.84% for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines.

Translated, this means that getting the Covid vaccine of whichever variety reduces your chance of getting Covid by less than 1% to at most 3%.

Note: The Lancet scientific journal explains that absolute risk reductions (AAAs) “tend to be ignored because they give a much less impressive effect size than RRRs or relative risk reduction. Vaccine efficacy is generally reported as RRR.

Worse still, leaving aside the many real side-effects of Covid vaccines, is a study published in the Internal Journal of Clinical Practice (IJCP) which found that the vaccines may actually “sensitize” vaccine recipients to more severe diseases than if they had not been vaccinated. The Oxford Dictionary defines “sensitize” as “Cause (someone or something) to respond to certain stimuli; make sensitive.”

From the IJCP article’s “Abstract”:

Results of the study: COVID-19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralising antibodies may sensitise vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated. Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern: that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralising antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This risk is sufficiently obscured in clinical trial protocols and consent forms for ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials that adequate patient comprehension of this risk is unlikely to occur, obviating truly informed consent by subjects in these trials.

~E

Another cheap drug effective against COVID-19: fenofibrate

Governments in the U.S. and across the world are reacting with hysteria to alleged spikes in COVID-19 infections of the Delta variety, allegedly because of people who decline to be vaccinated, by re-imposing mask mandates and even lockdowns.

New Zealand’s socialist government, under the allegedly female prime minister Jacinda Ardern who, strangely, seems to have a penis, just re-imposed a lockdown of the entire country because of one single case of COVID-19; while the socialist Scottish government is actually pushing to make permanent its COVID emergency powers.

But the fact of the matter is that there are common, widely-available, and cheap drugs that are effective against the COVID-19 virus. See, for example, my post of August 15: “Ivermectin effective against COVID-19“.

Now comes medical news of another cheap drug that’s shown to be effective against COVID-19 — the anti-cholesterol drug, fenofibrate.

From Medical News Today, August 16, 2021:

An international effort — involving scientists from Keele University and the University of Birmingham, both in the United Kingdom, and the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan — has found that a drug that people formerly used to control cholesterol levels could be an effective treatment against COVID-19.

The results of the study will appear in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology….

Scientists developed fenofibrate in the 1980sTrusted Source, and doctors used it widely [until statin came along] to control people’s cholesterol levels….

In laboratory experiments, the researchers found that fenofibrate destabilized the spike protein and inhibited binding to the ACE2Trusted Source membrane protein, through which the virus enters the cells.

The drug is effective against the Alpha and Beta variants of SARS-CoV-2, and the team is now investigating its effectiveness against the Delta variant.

After experiments with the isolated protein, other researchers in the team repeated the experiments with the live virus and found that fenofibrate was equally effective against the live virus.

Co-corresponding study author Dr. Farhat Khanim, director of research in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Birmingham, tested the drug against the live virus. She was optimistic about its potential.

“We are cautiously very excited. We cannot lose sight of the fact that there are groups of patients at high risk, for whom the vaccine will not work,” she told MNT. “There is still an urgent need to expand our arsenal of drugs to treat SARS-CoV-2 […].”

The drug seems to work, irrespective of spike mutations,” said Dr. Khanim.

The researchers then looked at how much virus infected cells released after treatment with fenofibrate in vitro. They found that there was a 60% reduction in viral release compared with untreated cells. Other drugs, such as statins, did not have a similar effect.

The viral reproduction and spread among cells are what causes the symptoms as the body tries to control the virus. A drug that reduces that viral release should prevent severe disease and hospitalization and reduce the risk of those with SARS-CoV-2 passing it on to others.

~E

Ivermectin effective against COVID-19

NOTE: This post is for information purpose and should not be regarded as a medical prescription. You alone are responsible for any action you may undertake from reading this post.

——————————————————————————————-

According to the federal government’s NIH (National Institutes of Health), ivermectin is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved antiparasitic drug that is widely used to treat several tropical diseases, including onchocerciasis, helminthiases, and scabies; it is also being evaluated for its potential to reduce the rate of malaria transmission by killing mosquitoes that feed on treated humans and livestock.

Although (1) ivermectin has been shown to inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures, and (2) some clinical trials and observational cohorts have found ivermectin to be effective in preventing and treating the COVID-19 coronavirus (data from some of these studies can be found in Table 2c, the FDA has not approved ivermectin for the treatment of any viral infection, claiming “there is insufficient evidence for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.” (Source: NIH)

However, independent scientists and physicians disagree with the NIH:

  • As early as December 2020, Paul Marik, MD, a professor and chief of the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, said that studies indicate ivermectin to have “demonstrated efficacy” in preventing COVID-19 infection prior to and after exposure to the coronavirus, and that the drug has been shown to effectively treat the virus in the early symptomatic stages and among patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Dr. Marik called ivermectin “remarkable” and “a gift to us”–“a safe drug that is exceedingly cheap.”
  • A study by a team of scientists found a 5-day course of ivermectin to be safe and effective in treating adult patients with mild COVID-19. Their study is published in the February 2021 issue of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Infectious Diseases (here).
  • An even more recent study of bibliographic databases up to April 25, 2021, published in the July-August 2021 issue of the peer-reviewed American Journal of Therapeutics (here), concluded that:

Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally…. Health professionals should strongly consider its use, in both treatment and prophylaxis [prevention].

There are also many anecdotal accounts, both online and from my contacts, of the effectiveness of ivermectin for the treatment of early onset COVID-19.

Amazon.com requires that you have a doctor’s prescription in order to purchase ivermectin. But there is a website that doesn’t (click here).

Business Insider warns that “While smaller doses of the medication [ivermectin] can be tolerated by humans, with few side effects…, taking a dose of ivermectin intended for an animal the size of a compact car [like a horse] can poison you. According to the Missouri Poison Center, serious overdoses of ivermectin can result in seizures, coma, lung issues, and heart problems.”

In studies of ivermectin given to patients with COVID-19, here’s the protocol or plan (Healio):

In the protocol, those at high risk for COVID-19 infection receive ivermectin at 0.2 mg/kg on day 1 and day 3, and weekly for 4 weeks…. For early outpatients with COVID-19, the protocol calls for one dose of ivermectin at 0.2 mg/kg at day 1 and day 3….

Update (January 28, 2022):  The recommended dosage above is way too complicated. I searched online and found a simpler prescription: 12 mg of ivermectin a day for 5 days.

NOTE: This post is for information purpose and should not be regarded as a medical prescription. You alone are responsible for any action you may undertake from reading this post.

~E

Americans with Ph.D.s are least likely to get COVID-19 vaccine

Coronavirus vaccination tyranny is upon us (see a post on this, forthcoming).

Most of the media coverage would have you believe that the reported surge in  the Delta coronavirus variant cases is mainly due to those less educated Trump “morons” (i.e., supporters) who don’t want to take the vaccine.

But according to a new paper by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, it turns out that Americans with a doctoral degree are the most skeptical about the vaccine, and the least likely to get vaccinated.

Intelligence is moderately correlated (r=0.39-0.44) with educational achievement (see here). Those with PhD, LLD, MD and DDS degrees have the highest IQs of all education levels — an average IQ of 124 (see here). This means that the most intelligent Americans are the most skeptical about the coronavirus vaccine(s).

As reported by the UK’s Unherd, August 11, 2021, the study analyzed more than 5 million survey responses by Americans of different demographic details, including education level, and classed those people who would “probably” or “definitely” not choose to get vaccinated as “vaccine hesitant.”

While the study did find a correlation between counties with higher Trump support in the 2020 presidential election and higher vaccine hesitancy (in the period January 2021 — May 2021), the association between vaccine hesitancy and education level follows a U-shaped curve with the highest hesitancy among those least and most educated. People with a master’s degree had the least hesitancy, and the highest hesitancy was among those holding a Ph.D. 

In the first five months of 2021, the largest decrease in hesitancy was among the least educated — those with a high school education or less. However, hesitancy held constant in the most educated group — those with a Ph.D. degree.

So not only are the most educated people most skeptical of taking the COVID vaccine, they are also the least likely the change their minds about it. For the reasons why, see my post of June 9, 2021, here.

~E

Sunday Devotional: Be kind to one another

Ephesians 4:30-5:2

Brothers and sisters:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. 
All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling
must be removed from you, along with all malice. 
And be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

This Sunday’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians exhorts us to “be imitators of God”.

Just as Jesus love us so much He sacrificed Himself so that we may be redeemed and have access to a life after death in Heaven, we are exhorted to also “live in love” by removing all “malice…bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling” from ourselves, and instead “be kind to one another”.

What does kindness mean?

Being kind is defined as “harboring a spirit of helpfulness, as well as being generous and considerate, and doing so without expecting anything in return. Kindness is a quality of being.”

Note that the above definition doesn’t specify the recipient of our kindness must be human. Being kind isn’t species-specific.

Being kind isn’t just for the benefit of others, human and nonhuman (animals). It turns out that being kind is good for us!

Science has found evidence that being kind is:

(1) Good for our body:

  • Kind people tend to be healthier and live longer. 
  • Being kind can decrease blood pressure and cortisol, a stress hormone. When we are under stress, our bodies release cortisol, which increases blood sugars. While small increases in cortisol have positive effects on our response to stress by giving us a quick burst of energy, heightened memory and a lowered sensitivity to pain, increased cortisol levels caused by chronic stress can decrease immune functioning, increase weight gain and difficulty losing weight, and increase blood pressure, cholesterol and risks of heart disease. Sustained cortisol increases can actually harm the brain and impair thinking, memory and learning, which is why people under chronic stress can “go blank” and be forgetful. (Michigan State University)

(2) Good for our mental wellbeing:

  • Kindness can increase our sense of connectivity with others, which  elevates our mood and alleviates loneliness — a widespread epidemic in our time, exacerbated by government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns and “social distancing”.
  • Kindness increases self-esteem, empathy and compassion.
  • Physiologically, kindness can positively change our brains by boosting dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins:
    • Dopamine, a “feel-good” chemical, is a chemical messenger in the brain that can give us a feeling of euphoria, and is credited with causing what’s known as a “helper’s high.”
    • Oxytocin, sometimes called “the love hormone,” is the hormone mothers produce when they breastfeed, cementing their bond with their babies. Oxytocin is also released when we’re physically intimate. Oxytocin plays a role in forming social bonds, making us more trusting, more generous, and friendlier, while also lowering our blood pressure.
    • Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood.
    • An endorphin-like chemical in our body called substance P can relieve pain.

But for the above beneficial effects to last, kindness can’t be a single act. Being kind is most beneficial as a practice—something we work into our daily routine whether in the form of ongoing volunteer work, donating to worthy causes, random acts of kindness like feeding an expired parking meter for a stranger, bringing a snack to share with friends and colleagues, or feeding the homeless, human or animal.

Sources: Mayo Clinic; Cedars Sinai

May the peace, kindness and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord, be with you!

~E