Medical Freedom News of the Day
Thursday, July 21, 2022
Medical Freedom News of the Day - Thursday, July 21, 2022
This is a very busy Medical Freedom News of the Day segment. It is so busy that I am going to separate the Videos/Podcasts category to its own segment.
Covid News
WHO: COVID triples across Europe, hospitalizations double (Associated Press) - July 19, 2022
The World Health Organization said Tuesday that coronavirus cases have tripled across Europe in the past six weeks, accounting for nearly half of all infections globally. Hospitalization rates have also doubled, although intensive care admissions have remained low.
In a statement on Tuesday, WHO’s Europe director, Dr. Hans Kluge, described COVID-19 as “a nasty and potentially deadly illness” that people should not underestimate. He said super-infectious relatives of the omicron variant were driving new waves of disease across the continent and that repeat infections could potentially lead to long COVID.
Three things to know about BA.5, the highly contagious COVID-19 strain spreading right now (The Dallas Morning News) - July 20, 2022
Both federal and local health experts have raised Dallas County’s COVID-19 alert levels as the highly contagious COVID-19 variant BA.5 causes both case counts and hospitalizations to climb.
Dallas County moved its internal COVID-19 risk level to orange, or “extreme caution,” on Saturday, just days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designated Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties as having high community spread of the virus on Thursday.
SARS-CoV-2 S1 Protein Persistence in SARS-CoV-2 Negative Post-Vaccination Individuals with Long COVID/PASC-Like Symptoms (Research Square) - July 12, 2022
The study sought to determine the immunologic abnormalities in patients following SARS-CoV-2 vaccines who experience post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC)-like symptoms > 4 weeks post vaccination. In addition, we investigated whether the potential etiology was similar to PASC.
USC researchers identify symptoms associated with increased risk for long COVID (Los Angeles Times) - July 20, 2022
A new study from researchers at USC offers some insights into the prevalence of long COVID and suggests some early clues for who might be more likely to develop long-term symptoms.
It did note a higher risk in patients who had obesity prior to infection. And it also spotted some associations between specific symptoms people experienced during their initial infection and the likelihood of developing long COVID. Patients who reported sore throats, headaches and, intriguingly, hair loss after testing positive were more likely to have lingering symptoms months later.
New Study Adds to Growing Body of Evidence Suggesting Mask Mandates Are Ineffective (The Epoch Times) - July 19, 2022
A new study published this month revealed that COVID-19 mask mandates in schools have little to no effect.
“Our findings contribute to a growing body of literature which suggests school-based mask mandates have limited to no impact on the case rates of COVID-19 among K-12 students,” researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of California–Davis said in a preprint study published on Research Square.
Researchers evaluated two school districts in Fargo, North Dakota, in which one had a mask mandate and the other did not during the 2021–2022 academic year.
“We observed no significant difference between student case rates while the districts had differing masking policies nor while they had the same mask policies,” they noted, adding that the “impact of school-based mask mandates on COVID-19 transmission in children is not fully established” amid mandates nationwide.
Other Medical News
Big Pharma Wants to Put an End to Vitamins and Supplements (The Epoch Times) - July 19, 2022
The pharmaceutical industry wants nothing more than to put an end to one of its biggest competitors – vitamins and supplements. They’ve been trying for years to do it, but now they’re pulling out the stops to make it happen. Take action now to safeguard your access to supplements.
One of the latest attempts to thwart your ability to access nutritional supplements comes in the form of draft legislation that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements. In short, it would require supplements — which are food — to undergo the same approval process as drugs
These 3 Things Are "Very Likely" to Lead to a Dementia Diagnosis, Study Says (BestLife) - July 20, 2022
Right now, 6.5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia. And while there are many risk factors for Alzheimer's that cannot be changed—age, sex, and a genetic predisposition, to name a few—several modifiable factors also appear to contribute to one's likelihood of developing the neurodegenerative disease. Now, a new study is highlighting three crucial factors that may make you more likely to receive a dementia diagnosis—and crucially, two of them can be changed.
Monkeypox concern grows as virus spreads in Chicago: ‘They need to get loud about this’ (Chicago Tribune) - July 19, 2022
Chicago public health officials reported 173 monkeypox cases on Monday — up from 105 last week — and with vaccines scarce and hard to find, alarm is growing among doctors and those in the gay community that the city is not doing enough to address the spread.
Health officials are imploring the city to do more by increasing not only resources such as contact tracing, but also public awareness and education. Some in the gay community feel that the lack of public concern about the virus is because it’s mostly affecting men who have sex with other men, but health officials warn there is nothing to stop the virus from spreading to the entire population.
Window to control monkeypox may be closing in US (CIDRAP) - July 18, 2022
As the United States confirms 1,814 monkeypox cases from 45 states, some public health experts are expressing fears that the virus is becoming entrenched in the country, and the window to control the outbreak and eliminate the virus from the country is closing quickly.
Several media outlets over the weekend reported that access to treatments and vaccines is still far from streamlined, with doctors required to make formal requests from the national stockpile each time they wish to treat a patient with Tpoxx, an antiviral used to treat smallpox that can also be used for monkeypox.
Amid blackouts, food shortages, Cubans face a dengue outbreak that has killed two children (Miami Herald) - July 20, 2022
Burdened by constant blackouts and food shortages, Cubans are now facing a new dengue outbreak in the middle of the hot summer that threatens again to overwhelm the island’s public health system, already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dengue is a viral disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, and the government said the levels of mosquito infestation on the island are the worst in the past 15 years. In a meeting Tuesday, Cuban health authorities said they had confirmed 3,036 cases of dengue so far this year. But most people with symptoms, such as fever, vomiting or a rash, do not get tested, as the health system also lacks testing supplies.
Doing This While You Drive Spikes Your Risk of Cognitive Decline, Experts Warn (BestLife) - July 19, 2022
A 2020 study published in the journal Scientific Reportsexplains the two main strategies our brains use when we're figuring out where to go: "One is the spatial memory strategy and involves learning the relative positions of landmarks and serves to form a cognitive map of the environment. This strategy critically relies on the hippocampus, a brain region heavily involved in episodic memory and relational memory," the team writes. "The other strategy is the stimulus-response strategy and involves learning a sequence of motor responses (e.g., turn left) from specific positions (e.g., next corner)." That last one, they say, "leads to more rigid behavior and allows us to navigate on 'auto-pilot' on routes that we travel frequently."
The catch? We only use those cognitive skills when we're not using Global Positioning System (GPS) to navigate.
If Your Stomach Feels Like This, Get Your Liver Checked, Doctor Warns (BestLife) - July 19, 2022
Your stomach can tell you a lot about your health. Pain, nausea, or cramping could be due to that sketchy lobster roll you had for lunch, or the gastrointestinal bug your child brought home from summer camp—but your stomach can also be affected by health conditions you wouldn't normally think of as being connected to tummy troubles. Gallstones, hypoglycemia, and pancreatitis can all manifest with stomach distress, and one abdominal symptom in particular may be a warning sign of a serious problem with your liver.