this study done by Oregon State University looks at the effects of vitamin D and various conditions it's a little long but worth the read.

https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/vitamin-D

The above monoclonal antibody study is the type of biochemical research I have been advocating and looks really promising

Quote from Dr Richard

The above monoclonal antibody study is the type of biochemical research I have been advocating and looks really promising

My wife and I had discussed this as a treatment for paget disease with her oncologist just last week. A trial is beginning the first of November. Being in stage 3 all felt radiation would have more immediate impact. As the above article points out this will end up being a very expensive treatment

Fm1 Sorry to hear your wife is ill, I know from my own personal experience how difficult this must be for you, with the medical system so overloaded and pre-occupied with COVID. Has any cause of the illness been established by your oncologist?

Quote from Alan Smith

Fm1 and Dr Richard - you might want to move such a delicate topic to a private conversation.

Done

Some of the vaccines under development have be kept very cold from the factory until just before they are administered. They have to be kept at -80 deg C. They are shipped in dry ice. This is a technical challenge. See:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0…old-frozen-logistics.html

How to Ship a Vaccine at –80°C, and Other Obstacles in the Covid Fight

Developing an effective vaccine is the first step. Then comes the question of how to deliver hundreds of millions of doses that may need to be kept at arctic temperatures.

Was this the first Tuesday that the US has had under 100 deaths in every state?

Peak Prosperity's latest video -

Covid Testing: Bad Science Worse Policy

- questions UK lockdown and regulators' silence on ivermectin

Follow up interview of Dr. Thomas Borody on ivermectin -

Professor Thomas Borody Interview – Part 2

- discusses whether randomized clinical trials are required for ivermectin

Thanks Lou..

Quote from Lou Pagnucco

Professor Thomas Borody Interview – Part 2

- discusses whether randomized clinical trials are required for ivermectin

Voice of Hippocrates from Borody.

First .. do no harm..

such as waiting for another 6 months to complete an RCT on Ivermectin-Zn-Doxycycline.

"

jean-pierre ,you remember there was a

randomized control trial of parachutes published in a british medical journal

parachutes that would open and parachutes that wouldn't open

And they did the trial but they couldn't get anyone recruited for the placebo parachute

so they had to park the aircraft on the ground but it was just a laugh from

Such uneducated brains that would think that everything requires randomized controlled trials

and it doesn't

there's a whole list of conditions where rcts are inappropriate

so they should go back and read and maybe do medicine all over again

Quote from RobertBryant

Such uneducated brains that would think that everything requires randomized controlled trials

and it doesn't

there's a whole list of conditions where rcts are inappropriate

so they should go back and read and maybe do medicine all over again

I said i would no longer comment but this is a more general point.

The benefit of RCTs is that they can show whether a treatment works.

If it is clear a treatment works (delivers better results, factoring possible harm, that not giving it) you don't need an RCT.

If if it is not clear a treatment works, and you can be sure the treatment does no harm, you don't need an RCT. You just give the treatment.

But all treatments can at the margin do some harm - triggering allergies if for no other reason. The question then is: does the benefit from the treatment exceed the harm from the treatment?

Now, the history of medicince is that a whole load of treatments have been strongly supported by doctors, which uneducated brains have pointed out had no real evidence base. When unbiased tests were done they were found actually to do harm.

Here is a retrospective (but before COVID - no politics) analysis of teh repsonse to SARS, and the tretaments provided for it:

https://www.nature.com/news/2006/060911/full/060911-1.html

Put to the test

Soon after the outbreak, an expert panel on SARS treatment at the World Health Organization recommended a systematic review of clinical results. The aim was to steer doctors towards the correct treatment should the disease rear its head again.

Epidemiologist Lauren Stockman at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and her co-workers trawled through the medical literature for studies on six SARS treatments. Among those they focused on were antiviral treatments, such as ribavirin, and corticosteroids that were used to dampen down the immune system.

The team found more than 54 clinical studies of SARS-treatment outcomes: the vast majority were inconclusive and eight showed evidence of possible harm from the drugs, they report in PLoS Medicine¹.

Apples and oranges

This doesn't rule out the possibility that some of the drugs had a beneficial effect. But, the researchers say, it's impossible to tell. That's because the treatments were not given with the rigour expected of a clinical trial.

In a typical clinical trial, the individuals taking one drug are compared with a group taking a placebo, a higher dose of the drug, or a different drug. But it is ethically difficult to give patients a placebo in the face of an unknown and potentially lethal infection — and there wasn't time to consider other comparison groups. Without them, the results of any treatment are difficult, if not impossible, to interpret.

It is also tricky to compare studies with each other, Stockman says. Each one involved different drug doses or combinations and treated patients of different ages and health. So if individuals improved in one study and deteriorated in another, it is difficult to attribute this to the drug versus these other factors.

The researchers found that some studies suggested that ribavirin and steroids actually harmed patients; ribavirin increased the risk of anaemia and steroids are linked to bone deterioration and fungal infections. On the other hand, some of the drugs used during the epidemic do seem to inhibit the SARS virus in laboratory experiments on infected tissues, they found.

What is "obvious"?

I think therefore the debate over treatments for COVID comes down for whether it is obvious that they deliver benefit more than risk: veen though the risks in most cases are very small you can't dose people with 100 differentvtreatements just because each has small risks, the so question is what is the benefit.

In addition here, the metabolism during severe COVID is very atypical. Any substance which alters the immune system might interact with that atypical state and make it better or worse. The trouble is we do not a priori know which!

I hope this context will help some here to understand more clearly why many doctors are reluctant to sanction "might work but no info" treatments. Not because they are pawns of big pharma, nor because for sinister reasons they want to make COVID worse, but because they are good doctors wanting to do best for their patients.

This is so important because the goverments of this world could use the lie "test positive = infected" to keep their fashist undemocratic "emergency laws" forever:

https://sebastianrushworth.com…weden-have-herd-immunity/

We have 1,7 covid deaths a day in germany for months now and 18 through car accidents. Who is afraid of driving with a car? The argument to keep the emergency laws is that the pandemic might come back. Everyone is scared of sars cov-2 - we should be scared of all the goverments being in "germany 1933" state of mind. THIS is the real danger.

Quote from Epimetheus

This is so important because the goverments of this world could use the lie "test positive = infected" to keep their fashist undemocratic "emergency laws" forever:

https://sebastianrushworth.com…weden-have-herd-immunity/

We have 1,7 covid deaths a day in germany for months now and 18 through car accidents. Who is afraid of driving with a car? The argument to keep the emergency laws is that the pandemic might come back. Everyone is scared of sars cov-2 - we should be scared of all the goverments being in "germany 1933" state of mind. THIS is the real danger.

I think in these current turbulent times we all have fears about what governments will do. I don't myself have any worries about big brother population control internally from governments. The internet in particular is a strong force making that unlikely in democratic countries. My worries inside countries are more that political divisions seem now to be amplified and societal cohesion is therefore threatened. We need some level of "we are all the same" from the population to sustain democratic systems.

Whatever the internal risks - I worry much more about the external risks.

For me, I worry more that every government will resort to a nationalist & populist state of mind in which entering into legally binding international cooperative agreements is seen as a zero-sum game, rather than the positive factor it has overall been since the end of the second world war.

The world is now confronting problems due to larger than ever numbers of humans that cannot be solved nationally: air and sea pollution (and of course global warming), internet-based crime, habitat and species loss, spread of viruses. We also face man-made risks - hostile autocratic governments ever better at inserting subtle propaganda into the (necessarily free) systems of free countries. An area where bad players have an intrinsic advantage over good ones.

This set of problems has never been relevant in the past. Pollution worries of the seventies were essentially local: sure - you pollute a river or piece of ground. A few people die. But stop polluting and nature does its stuff and cleanses. Similarly with local changes to the ecosystem. It is all reversible. And lack of interconnectivity made extra-national mass influence impossible.

Now we are facing global-scale effects which are well understood and because they are everywhere they cannot be undone. Because any one actor misbehaving affects everyone we have a classic tragedy of the commons.

I don't advocate eugenics to reduce population - although massive international aid (focused especially on supporting and educating women) has been shown to help this.

But we need to manage the current situation as well as possible, and for that we need cooperative governments, not ones who consider every international agreement zero-sum.

THH

Its time for the medical community to start taking a holistic approach in all things infectious. Rather than treating a specific illness. Vaccines and drug treatment over the years has literally destroyed any chance to fight infections off. Our in he systems when working properly has the ability to fight flu or any novel viruses emerging. I'm posting just one of the latest study's involving IL-17 and it's importance to cytokine and Bradykinin response. IL-17 when in proper balance will give cytokine and Bradykinin a balanced response however as I have posted a Vitamn D deficenccy will allow IL-17 to over produce T-cell response ending in the storm we all fear. Medicine n my opinion works assbackward. Rather than preventing only treating symptomatic infection. Its time for a different approach when one realizes that puting chemicals into the body does more harm than good. Wouldn't it be in the world's best interest to prevent ratherthan treat disease. Again not scientific but a common sense approach.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/…crobiology/interleukin-17

https://www.sciencedirect.com/…pairs%20kidney%20function.

I rest my case !!!!

Quote from THHuxleynew

The benefit of RCTs is that they can show whether a treatment works.

Exactly. So this is only needed when the treatment is marginal and you cannot tell directly, as you could with things like penicillin.

Quote from THHuxleynew

If it is clear a treatment works (delivers better results, factoring possible harm, that not giving it) you don't need an RCT.

If if it is not clear a treatment works, and you can be sure the treatment does no harm, you don't need an RCT. You just give the treatment.

Right again. An example would be putting the patients on their stomachs instead of their backs. Many patients themselves report immediate relief. This could not hurt, even if it does not help.

Quote from Fm1

Vaccines and drug treatment over the years has literally destroyed any chance to fight infections off.

No, they have not. This is New Age Bullshit.

Quote from JedRothwell

No, they have not. This is New Age Bullshit.

Jed I once agreed 100% but I've taken the time to research both ways. I'm sure we will disagree but please take the time to read this article it offers pro and cons. You have already made your mind up but maybe the work being done at the mayo clinic will give you some pause into calling anything you don't like as bullshit

Quote from Fm1

Jed I once agreed 100% but I've taken the time to research both ways. I'm sure we will disagree but please take the time to read this article it offers pro and cons. You have already made your mind up

Not me. I did not make up my mind. The entire medical establishment made up its mind about this 200 years ago. As far as I know there is no evidence to the contrary.

I do not know much about clinical medical science. It makes me queasy reading that stuff. I have read a lot about public health, so I would know if vaccines have "destroyed any chance to fight infections off." That would be obvious from the stats. It is possible that every doctor and every public health agency is engaged in a conspiracy to hide the data you think indicates that. It is possible all of the health statistics from the last 200 years, showing dramatic decreases in infectious disease, and a tremendous growth in population because of that, are all fake. But I think that is unlikely. As I said, I am a painfully conventional person. My mother was a pillar of the Federal statistical establishment and the American Statistical Association. I grew up surrounded by data from public health and other fields. So I tend to believe the stats. I do not believe in conspiracy theories. If what you say is true, it would be the biggest and best hidden conspiracy in the history of medical science.

Start reading the alternatives it my be distastefulll considering your upbringing but as a scientist I thought you of all people would demand that everything is on the table till proven wrong. Modern medicine began in the early 20th century, looking to treat rather than prevent. Don't allow queasiness to keep you from doing the research. Maybe Kirk and ascolie are queasy about cold fusion yet you demand they do the research. I expect you to do the same. It could very well save you or your family's lives.

Quote from Fm1

I thought you of all people would demand that everything is on the table till proven wrong.

The hypothesis is proven wrong. Vaccines have emphatically NOT, NOT, NOT "destroyed any chance to fight infections off." We fight off infections as well as any other animal, and as well as our ancestors did. People who lived before modern vaccines, poor people in the third world who have not been innoculated, and the children of anti-vaccine people, are not able to fight off infections any better than the rest of us. If they were, that would obvious from the stats. I grew up before we had many modern vaccines for things like rubella and chickenpox. I and most other people got these diseases, and millions of us suffered or died at the same rate as unvaccinated children do today, even though we had the benefit of other vaccines.

Quote from Fm1

Don't allow queasiness to keep you from doing the research.

I don't need to do any research. This is a statistical finding, not clinical. You don't need to know anything about disease to see it. Every medical textbook and every book of statistics published since 1800 proves that you are wrong and what you say is a dangerou lie. Dangerous because it plays into the anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. These have killed hundred of thousands of people worldwide. Not so many in first world countries, thanks to herd immunity.