As an establishment trained doctor who now questions everything from mainstream medicine, I hope this series is far reaching. Reminder, most doctors are employees in a very broken system. They don’t even have time to seek the real truth, and if they find it and speak out, they risk losing their jobs. I left the system in 2015 thank God. All glory to Him.
In my 85 years, I've only been treated by one real dr. The rest were just guessing, mostly guessed wrong, and never asked the right questions or wanted to listen to what I told them. Drs. are some of the most arrogant species on earth and I avoid them as much as possible. You may be the exception.
Medical school attracts rule followers, not critical thinkers. I was alarmed to notice this when I started med school at age 29. My classmates were very young box checkers…& many of them were arrogant. I wanted to be a primary care doctor, because my family doctor made a difference in my health/life. I was told “you are too smart for primary care” too many times to count. Medical education is flawed in many ways. In hindsight, much of it is brain washing. I trained from 99-2006. Now it is much worse. Brainwashing now includes DEI nonsense & harming children in almost all med schools(& DO schools) and residency programs.
My breakdown: most MDs have good memories but poor reasoning skills. And they’re generally terrified to do something that’s not in a book or journal. They’re what I call large database/little logic types. That’s easily 95% of doctors and surgeons. If your memory is as poor as mine is, you can’t make that work, so you have to have a very good logic machine. I do, so I’m in the maybe 3-4% that’s the small database/lotta logic group. We can do more because everything has to be reasoned/derived from the ground up. The remaining two categories exist, but represent very rare medical people.
The larger group survive and flourish because 1) most diseases are self-limiting and 2) they define the standard of care. And most are clever enough to ask for help when they’re out of their depths. Not all, though: arrogance (and greed) figure into the equation as well.
These types of Drs will be replaced by AI in the not too distant future. If all they are doing is looking at test results, determining a diagnosis and then following an accepted protocol, they are simply not needed. This is managing an illness. Critical thinking and a desire to cure illness will lead Drs to search for a root cause and educate a patient on what/how they got themselves in this position and what to do to reverse course. Functional Medicine Drs are the Drs of the future.
So true! My old doctors didn't have google so they actually practiced medicine. The new ones have no confidence in their own ability to assess situations and rarely come up with anything I could not have found myself online. They can no longer look at a patient, listen to a patient, and trust their own experience and instincts.
"...didn't have Google so they actually practiced medicine." Perfect. What happens when S*ndar Pich*i's creepy search engine goes on the fritz? Or worse, gives bad advice? I think the whole point of what they are doing in medical school now is to make us sicker, more drug dependent and surgically mutilated.
I demanded my extremely low-risk husband stay away from those horrible drugs that made his muscles ache and had only a 15% efficacy rate in people with his makeup. It's a racket.
To be fair, troubleshooting is a mix of a lot of skillsets. Most doctors are not going to be great at all of them. In the same what that most mechanics can't tell you engine timing on a 1967 mustang. You have to be willing to give them a chance to research your symptoms.
If we help all doctors to the highest standards, most people would never be able to even see a doctor, because there would be about 1/100th than there are now.
I was going to comment on troubleshooting but you chimed in first. Doctors are body mechanics and considering how complex modern cars have become I'm not sure auto tmechanics don't require about the same amount of knowlege in their given profession.
"Employees in a very broken system"... wow, how true. When I first entered adulthood in the 1980s I visited a doctor whom I had found in the yellow pages. This being 1980s Long Island, his office was in the basement of a brick split-level house and consisted of him, his wife (an RN), and another employee RN. That was the entire business model. He and his staff were always available and competent when I needed things such as having an enormous wax clog removed from my ear after an business trip. He was an osteopath and the only thing odd about his exams were a couple of stretchy-bendy things he did with my arms and legs - but in retrospect, isn't that a good thing? I went to him for about 10 years for everything from depression to allergy shots (another solo-practitioner doc ran a testing center in Levittown, and prepared the serum, but individual docs gave you the jab). I even kept going to him after I moved 15 miles away. Now, I'm on Medicare, in one of those "Advantage" plans that gives you access to a $40 per month fund for OTC items such as... Flonase and vitamins. The plan also once sent a bona fide MD to my house for what seemed like a pleasant chat! I mean, just for kicks! I've moved and they've since kept trying to set that up but I say, no thanks - I don't want to strain the medical-delivery system. How is any of this an "improvement" or "achieving better outcomes" than what I received in that Long Island split level house?
Exactly. Our profession allowed the middlemen (govt, insurance, pharma…) to take over in order to make more money. Seems it was all planned a long time ago by a few greedy people who sought to control doctors. The ACA was the final nail in the coffin for our profession. Some of us predicted it. Ironically, we were called greedy, when in reality, I would make a lot more money had I continued to play the game.
I am a small business owner. In the year before the ACA, we paid $600 month for a family plan with a $10,000 deductible. I loved that high deductible plan. It encouraged us to shop doctors and focus on lowering our health costs. The ACA "outlawed" our plan. Today, we pay $2,100+ and have a $6,000 deductible. I was told the ACA was going to lower rates, but all it did was entrench the insurance companies.
We had same plan - the $2100 plus $6k deductible. We switched to MediShare 18 months ago. It's a 'share' program not officially insurance. Love the model - however I think they are crooks. SO. Back to square one.
My best personal healthcare providers have been DOs, NPs, and Nutritionists ( who are not brainwashed with the government dietary guidelines). They focus less on a pill for your ill, and more on root cause medicine.
I have Kaiser in SoCal and recently found an osteopath in Kaiser. After my long term doc retired, my husband and I went through a couple of docs who were not "our cup of tea." So far I'm happy with my osteopath.
Yes! When I was being raised in Florida by a New Jersey-bred mom and a "Florida cracker" dad, I learned from them to view osteopaths with suspicion as just a step up from chiropractors (also bad, in my parents' view). But I really liked this guy and I'm sure he's long since retired.
when i was chastised and guilt tripped for not taking the clot shot in 2021 when I was pregnant by my OBGYN. I just said over and over I wanted to wait until more data was available. AFter the 4th argument, I knew something was up. Sure enough, documents published last year showed that my doc would have been paid handsomely if I had taken it. Since i lost 5 friends to heart attacks, several more had strokes, early and insanely crazy cancers, and one friend lost their baby two days post shot, I'm glad I was strong and didn't take it.
Never took the poison covid shot. My doctor told me to never take any MNRA vaccine, nor the flu shots either. He told me this in summer 2020, six months before the shots came out. He also told me to never wear a mask, to never worry about distancing, to take Ivermectin, Hydroxychloriquin, Zinc, and Vitamin C and D every day. This was in summer 2020
Yes. DO Doctor of Osteoopathy. He can crack your back, do gene therapy, and many procedures not common to MD’s. He specializes in older folks like me and takes no insurance. He works for me, not Big Pharma or a corporate hospital network.
Totally agree! I was in the same general situation as you. I’ve seen more than a few people experience side effects and have witnessed the attitude of their respective healthcare providers that has been one of disbelief, the it’s all in your head, type of response. Sad.
I think the thing that I find the most frustrating about our system is the assumption that we’re all broken and only medicine can fix us. My body is not broken, it just needs the right conditions to heal. But it takes time and patience. There doesn’t seem to be room for time and patience in the mainstream healthcare model.
I follow my GP’s conservative approach - less is more. I knew he was following his own advice when he did not mask although the “med business” he worked for made all wear one. BTW, he was reported by a patient to the “authorities” and still did not wear the face diaper.
Good plan. That is my approach. At this point, my goal is to help people stop their meds. I hired 2 NPs, one of whom studied functional medicine, so we can offer more individualized care.
From my Quotes File: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."
This is why I have a concierge doctor who takes no insurance at all, including Medicare and Medicaid. Cash only for each visit. He loves me, not Big Pharma. He sends me to specialty doctors for procedures that do take insurance. I trust my doctor completely.
Dr. Molly, I have tremendous respect for you as a traditional doctor. My life was saved ten years ago by my own medical team. I do believe that all can benefit from a combination of both traditional western and alternative medicine in the form of the functional medicine and/or naturopathic approach. My experience has been that western medical doctors are given little or no education on the impacts of nutrition on our overall health other than the warped info coming from the USDA which is a business support org for the agri industry and definitely not a health org. My naturopathic doctors found a simple nutritional solution to a chronic issue for me while that situation had my western doctors stumped. But I would not be here today if it wasn't for the care of my traditional MD's. Best to combine both approaches imho.
Thank you. I agree. As someone raised on low fat diets & processed food, I feel healthier now than ever. Prior to covid, I was already aware of corruption in our agencies, as I was practicing in the epicenter of the opioid crisis. Then, I started to question statins and read Nina Teicholz & Dr. Jason Fung. What a wild ride…from working for Tony Fauci prior to med school to now questioning everything I was taught! I should write a book 😂
Find Dave Diamond, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, Dr. Ali (from Houston), Ivor Cummins (the fat emperor) videos on YouTube. Dave explains it best. He is not a doctor but was diagnosed with hyperlipidemia & told he needed a statin. Statins are oversold, and they have some terrible side effects, including insulin resistance.
Are you now in a Direct Care practice? I pay $75 per month so see docs who listen to me and work with me, one an MD and one a DO. We disagreed a bit on the jab but I did get a prescription for IVM out of them before it was effectively banned - their licenses would have been in jeopardy here in WA State. I'm going to turn them into functional medicine docs yet.
A friend of mine recently completed med school and is now doing rotations. We were talking about health and I made the comment “I’m no doctor, just a relatively smart guy who’s pretty good at using Google.” He said I’d be surprised how many doctors are basically just that.
Good for you for taking a more noble path and questioning things. May God bless your journey.
My brother, a now "semi-retired" urologist, shares your views about being an employee of a very broken system, which is a major reason he recently semi-retired to focus his energies on commercial real estate investment.
More Nellie in my weekly reading?! Sign me up! Also, fascinating stuff here. I've worked in healthcare for over 35 years and it is painfully clear the last the the public health establishment cares about is the public's health. Very interesting insights.
I’m hoping commenters in the health professions and others can add quite a bit to this. Academia is one source of info, those in practice another, and pharma folks another… the more sources the better the discussion!
Nothing and everything, Fork. When you practice political medicine, you're practicing politics not medicine. Lying about health outcomes for minorities to advance a political agenda is bizarre and an abomination. But they do it. For power and for lucre.
Well, the "and" is that proves your position wrong. Which is a regular thing.
Lol!!! It's the data from the Rutgers researchers that was referenced. It's in the article Nellie linked. So, maybe you can send them an email about it?
Ignorance without examination and thought is the life blood of people such as you.
The CDC got something wrong? Are we sure that is not Russian Dis-information? I am just like really, really totally stunned that the CDC got things wrong. Next you will tell me Joe isn't a true believer in Christ, his resurrection on Easter observant and prefers tranny day instead.
Why is it news that plastic is destroying everything? The island of plastic floating in the Ocean. Countries dumping their recyclables in poor third world countries. But we are meeting pollution and carbon goals? Yeah for us, we are just so good! Again, our leaderships lack of empathy and remorse is astounding. Our National Recycling is a joke as the heavy metals being dumped in landfills. We are killing the Oceans, but rest assured, we are putting more regulations on gas stoves. Idiots all!
If we all have to eat bugs, does that mean the roaches or politicians are on the plate? Soylent Green coming? Asking for a friend?
On what planet or under what rock must you live to finally believe the Government lied on COVID? Why is that even still debatable?
Democrat healthcare follows The Science (TM). Mask and jab in perpetuity. Close the gyms, churches and schools, but keep liquor stores open. No need to exercise or eat well, obese is beautiful. Fruit loops are more nutritious than eggs and bacon. People with penises can enter birthing person locker rooms and destroy them in sports. If you don’t listen to teenagers and bartenders, the world will end.
I’ve spent 15 years working on making packaging more sustainable. This topic is rife with charlatans pushing agendas.
I would proceed with caution and skepticism on the perils of plastics. Not because there are none, but because, I feel, researchers generally have a ‘plastic = bad’ starting point.
Also common in the impact of plastic assessments is an acknowledgment that plastic isn’t a single thing it’s a category of materials. Do we confuse gold with steel with lead? They’re all metals! Yet PVC = Polyester = the HDPE used for milk jugs.
Another factor often glossed over is the impact of the alternatives. A glass jar weighs 4x that of a plastic jar and 10x that of a pouch. Let’s use paper some say! Shelf life goes to crap and the paper coatings used to provide some oxygen or moisture barrier make recycling that paper difficult.
Finally, are the microplastics from your food container or your hoodie? Make sure you know the source before the banning starts.
Let me know if you have any questions on PCR and recycling. I’m a fan of both, but like life, it’s complicated.
Thank you for this detailed information. Nellie should contact you to contribute to our understanding of this hyped topic. Please keep commenting to educate us .
Mickel, you are correct! I hear environmentalists before Congress DEMANDING petroleum/oil be banned, in order to “save the world” yet, when asked WHAT ALL they are willing to do without, they look stunned & sound ignorant.
Beginning in the mid 1970s, my family owned a Plastic Injection Molding Company. We bought TONS of plastic pellets, made, of course, from petroleum/oil. It’s how plastic is made.
We manufactured everything from medical supplies to Polo balls, and shoes/flip flops, zippers, bottles, jugs, lamp parts, coffee pot parts, those little umbrella drink decorations, etc., etc., etc., and list goes on & on & on!
When the environmentalist was asked, point blank, just what all she had with her was she willing to ban Americans from. Ironically, they had NO IDEA that everything they had on and with them = plastic = shoes, handbag, eyeglasses, water bottle (yes, it was stainless steel BUT THE LID WAS PLASTIC), even parts in her iPhone!
I am not a big milk drinker but my husband is. We got a new fridge and he started complaining that the milk tasted funny. Turns out LED lights will affect the taste. I am back to buying in cartons and I get no complaints from him.
Local food supplies. Once we had a national highway system, it was possible to ship food long distances. Consumers liked having more choices; they got spoiled by all the things they could buy.
Thank you for this helpful perspective. A good reminder that when something sounds exceedingly ridiculous, “why don’t we just quit doing that?” There’s always a more complicated “rest of the story”!
I remember the day my mother (so joyfully) purchased Johnson's Baby Shamppo in a plastic bottle and brought it home to our bathroom (for 6 kids). She no longer had to worry about broken glass bottles on the bathroom floor and in the tub!!! She didn't have to stay in the bathroom with all of us and dole out shampoo portions from the glass bottle. Sometimes it's the small things, and the invention of plastic containers is one of those for which many of us are grateful. Perhaps it's now gone too far. People are careless and lazy with their trash. But we can work on that, as Mr. Knight is doing.
Post Consumer Recyle. Plastic products used by an end user that is recycled for reuse. Polyester, think coke bottles, are recyclable without much deterioration in properties. Unfortunately, we only recycle about 28% of PET (polyester) bottles. Polyethylene, think milk jugs or bread bags, are also recyclable. However, much like paper fibers, their properties and aesthetics degrade with each recycling.
Advanced, or chemical, recycling is becoming more feasible, albeit expensive. There, plastic is essentially converted back into an oil which is used to make ‘virgin’ plastic.
Living in the dysfunctional urban circus of Chicago, I do wonder if tossing my empty seltzer bottles in the blue bin actually results in their being recycled.
Unfortunately, that's a maybe. We used to ship most of our plastic waste to China. Municipalities could make money selling poorly sorted waste. In 2017 China enacted their 'Green Sword' policy and stopped taking other people's waste streams. The market for bales of waste of all types cratered. Folks couldn't make money recycling, so some municipalities stopped doing it - either officially or behind closed doors.
On the plus side, most recycled bottles are PET a feed stream that folks can make money on. Rigid HDPE bottles are also common and is another viable feed stream. The odds that these are recycled are higher than other scrap types.
A quick google didn't find anything very recent but here's a short article covering the PCR market.
One of my main professional goals is to make recycling something people and business want to do, not have to do. Folks who want to do stuff are more likely to... well do stuff.
If you have any sensible tips about recycling or plastics in general, I’m all ears. I try to recycle, if it’s not too difficult. I prefer to reuse stuff if possible. I have an un-recyclable plastic box, which formerly held dishwasher pods, in my car because it makes a great car garbage can.
Every waste type is a contaminate for the other waste types. 'Wish-cycling' putting all sorts of stuff in your recycle bin and hoping likely causes more harm than good. Can the sorting equipment separate the unrecyclable stuff? Bales of recyclable material (plastic, paper, anything) have to have very low contamination content to be salable. Know what is accepted in your area and err on the side of caution.
For instance, we cannot put plastic bags in the curbside bin because it gets separated with the paper and contaminates that stream. However, many plastic bags are recyclable through a store drop off program. Many stores have these bins. A month's worth of recyclable plastic bags weighs about a pound and underscores how efficient this packaging format is. My Trex Deck is 50% recycled store drop-off material and I never need to stain it.
Finally, recyclable and biodegradable are completely completely completely (yes written three times!) different. Do not cross these streams (yes intentional reference).
I use the plastic bags for garbage cans. The amount of plastic bags coming in my home about equals the amount going out.
I think there needs to be better education on recycling. Seattle does a pretty good job, but I think it could be better. I like the coffee shops that have pictures of the actual garbage/recyclables they use in-house above the bin they go in. Make it easy on me, if I have to spend more than three seconds thinking about it, it’s going in the garbage.
I've seen data that areas that enact bag bans see an increase in the purchasing of small trash bags. HDPE grocery bags are very recyclable via store drop-off. However, using that bag a second time (or more!) is much better than buying a single use bag.
Is it my imagination, or has the whole issue of microplastics become a media bugaboo in just the past year or so? I don't recall seeing the term in popular use before.
For those of us graybeards who remember the Alar scare of the late 80's, I wonder if this issue has similarly been ginned up by an "environmental" group.
Microplastics are a big deal and have been a topic for more than a few years. Personally, I am very concerned about them, but also skeptical of many of the messengers on the topic. Plastics break down as they get oxidized in the environment. Ever notice a very old plastic part can be very brittle? It's oxidized. The industry has gotten better at designing more robust plastics and additives which prevent this, but it's still a thing.
As a plastic breaks down, it can break into parts, which break into smaller parts, eventually becoming 'micro-plastics'. Depending on the plastic and the size of the particle, these tiny plastic particles may be digested by bacteria becoming harmless byproducts - the particles are composted. I didn't say biodegradable, that's a legal term, I said compostable. Biodegradable plastics compost in a given time period under given conditions. Plastic particles that don't go to compost - how long are they around for? What is their impact? These are important questions.
That would be fun. I know a lot about a lot in this field. Enough to know that other folks in this field can easily know more than I do on any given topic. I've tried to keep my responses high level for both folks ease of understanding and to avoid any egregious mistakes.
(One of the problems of the legacy media's addiction to crying wolf - and the NGO complex's vested interest in crying wolf - is that occasionally, there might be a wolf at the door. I need to remember that.)
Plastic is gross and best to limit it as much as you can
If I buy something & have a choice to buy glass, I buy glass. For example: olive oil, tomato sauce, baby food for my baby, coffee, basically any food that I have a choice to not buy plastic, I don't.
I am a physician, and Covid completely changed how I view medical literature. I’m embarrassed to say how often I just blindly accepted the various dictums from the “established” medical community. No longer. Those “wacky” researchers on the periphery? Turns out they deserve at least a listen.
I can relate. I have recently been led down the forbidden childhood vaccine rabbit hole & it’s disturbing. When the tyrants started pushing the covid shot on kids, I woke up. Unfortunately I had been brainwashed enough to give my kids several shots they did not need.
Osteoporosis drugs scare me. Horrible side effects and risks. Within my relatively small sphere of family and friends, every woman who has taken them has had serious issues, including spontaneous fractures. My dentist requires patients on bone meds to sign release forms before any dental work is done. In Japan vit k2 is prescribed for osteoporosis. The drug companies won’t like that idea.
Oy osteoporosis - if you think about it - why do we even handle it this way? We do not screen for it until 65 - then you need to "treat" it with problematic medications - and meanwhile we do nothing to share good info about nutrition, types of exercise, or even hormone therapy that can be employed years before a fracture to reduce its risk. It's kind of mind boggling! Oh and the drugs are often prescribed wihtout even acknowledging that there are essential nutrtional/vitamin and movement requrirements of our bodies to make our bones last longer. So frustrating.
It is. We do not receive preventative care fro..our health service providers. I think one of the best things to do is be evaluated by a nutritionist periodically to check for
When healthcare is for profit, we all suffer. I just received a survey from my last urgent care visit. They didn't care at all about the care I had received. No. It was a survey about my perceptions of healthcare concerns in "our community." It had questions about how much access I thought my community members had to various aspects of mental and physical health care. WTF?! I consider this a DEI fishing expedition.
When I get any survey...I check all boxes...jam up the data collection...I am every gender, every color, every earning category, I am unsafe at home, I am safe at home, I am homeless, I live in a mansion...ugh...it is endless.
It is more nuanced. I own a “for profit” practice, but it is membership based. My patients pay me monthly. I am incentivized to keep them healthy. Also, “non profit” hospitals are often the most egregious price gougers. Medical care became more expensive as soon as we let the govt in and as soon as doctors decided to bill insurance for their care. I encourage you to read about the Surgery Center or Oklahoma and also Direct Primary Care. (Don’t read a WaPo article about it)
After having the same cardiologist for 30 yrs. I'm thinking of looking fir one that's NOT owned by a hospital system.
It's a constant referral to other doctors for a myriad of things. I think the "Standard of Care" is nothing more than a checklist of what "hospital" doctors can bill for and which doctor "in the system" they can refer you to, next.
Finding independent specialists is especially challenging. The govt (ACA) made owning a medical practice nearly impossible. Direct care (billing the patient) is the easiest way to make it work. Few people understand that the care we provide is actually cheaper than using insurance. Once people understand this, they will drop the insurance. This is why the architects of ACA had to mandate insurance. Coverage is not care, and healthcare is not a right.
There are way too many hands and sleight of hands in the haelthcare and health insurance industries.
How can any legitimate billing for a $300,000 procedure be settled with a $30,000 insurance payment? I don't think any patient actually knows how the billing and reimbursement systems work or what the actual costs are, let alone what the true value it is supposedly providing.
This is definitely food for thought. I always thought having insurance cover every doctor's visit for every tiny ailment was a prescription for disaster, even when it came in the form of a PPO or HMO. I grew up in Coastal Florida in the 1960s, in a big family, with a dad with a government job and a mom who stayed at home. My dad's insurance did not cover doctor's visits - for those he had to write a check. I would concede that this made my family a bit slipshod in the dental department - my sibs always had perfect teeth, and still do, to this day, but my mom and me were the subject of expensive visits to the dentist. I didn't get my twisted incisors straightened until I was in my 20s and that was on my own dime. In the early 2000s, after a job loss I was now supporting my own family also with a stay at home wife. I managed to get hired, but my new job was a contract role. I had to purchase a health plan with my own funds, and the best alternative was straight hospitalization coverage - an option that I believe is no longer available. Because the job was on Long Island, I started seeing the same DO I had visited in the 1980s - and because I didn't "go through the insurance system", his fee was fifty bucks. My kids' pediatrician was a bit richer, at $75. I do see the wisdom in having a system like that: those fees are less than what most people spend on their TV plan or phones in a given month.
In times past, in China, the dr. was paid while the person was well. If they became ill, the dr. wasn't paid. Good incentive for drs. to help the people stay well.
OK I asked earlier in this thread if you had a Direct Care practice and I see you do. In the past couple years, the docs in my Direct Care clinic suddenly have a huge waiting list, and that's with having brought in another MD. And many of their patients are on Medicare. We don't mind paying additional monthly fees to get old fashioned care with 1/2 hr appointments.
Actually we all have to make a living. I'd say when profit is the primary motive of health care, it becomes bad, possibly even evil! If good health is the primary motive of health care, then it's fine for the doctor to make a living out of it. That's what all the independent doctors who've been forced out of the system (by the crazy Covid laws) are doing. They couldn't be independent if they couldn't make a living out of practising their art. A totally non profit medical system would have all sorts of problems - central control, waste etc etc. Capitalism (or at least earning our way) is traditional. We have learnt however that we also need some control to stop monopolies. and quackery. Monopolistic socialism is also a problem. We need a bit of this and a bit of that - nuance and balance. Keep things human and as local as possible.
“I'd say when profit is the primary motive of health care, it becomes bad, possibly even evil!”
As we learned from the enormously talented Boeing whistleblower whose death was ruled a suicide-possibly the “Epstein” type-health and safety take a backseat in the boardrooms of corporate America. That he would dare point out troubling facts to his bosses and be labeled an “asshole” by the CEO is just another example of experts disrupting the profiteering process. Much like the example of COVID .
I think health care providers deserve to be paid. The question is/was how much? But I think injecting third party for-profit entities to administer health care was foolhardy. It created health business as opposed to health care. Dr. Rutherford being the rare, and IMO laudable, exception.
To me that IS the problem. Because it means that medical doctors have ceded control of medical decision making to the insurance companies. I already had issues with this pre-covid when every visit required my consent to share my medical info. Post-covid I am paralyzed with concern. Reading Dr. Rs comments gives me hope.
Another Slippery Slope: Back When, it was called "hospitalization;" true to the original concept of Insurance, it indemnified the unfortunate victim of a rare event with monies paid by a large pool of policyholders who had no expectation of collecting (and frankly would much rather not). One was expected to cover "normal" expenses (sniffles and minor repair work) oneself. The distortions that have arisen are legion, but the Original Sin was the AMA and its ilk deciding that being paid by a deep-pocketed entity was worth handing one's autonomy to that entity. Sad.
I only drink the big jugs of water you get at Home Depot. Your home water has chloramine in it, which you can't get out, and which is probably mildly bad for you. I also think that if fluoride is toxic in high doses to the nervous system (it is), then smaller doses are probably not good for anyone. My personal view, and this issue is not settled as far as I know, is that fluoridated toothpaste probably provides plenty of fluoride for kids, particularly if they get fluoride treatments at their dentists.
And I don't use plastic to store anything. I use glass. I don't heat anything, usually (I break this rule sometimes) with plastic on it, and definitely not IN plastic.
I do think the plastic issue is a large one. It's in our oceans. String caught tuna, out there in the wild, may contain meaningful amounts of plastic, and certainly mercury. Most health experts now say that eating tuna every day is unhealthy. That's crazy.
To my mind, trash and plastics are the true global challenges. Global warming is a stupid joke only perpetuated by the effectiveness of our colleges in teaching compliance. The science underlying it is mockworthy, if that is a word.
But as was recently mentioned, trash and plastic get zero mindspace any more even with "environmentalists", because the world is going to burn up. Or change. There may be more hurricanes, or maybe not. Oceans will rise, or maybe not, but whatever it is will be bad, and once it happens we will tell that's just what we were predicting.
That's true. Some Vitamins will kill you in high enough doses.
Still, drinking water is not a very effective way to get fluoride onto teeth, and the neurotoxological effects are most pronounced with the very young. For adults, I don't think water fluoridation makes much difference. For kids, it may. The data seems to point that way, and I think a good case can be made that even if it DID make sense in the 50's, with modern toothpastes and dental practices it no longer does.
And I wish they would go back to Chlorine. You can cook that out of the water. I don't allocate much mindspace to all this though.
I think chlorine as it used to be is gone. It was almost impossible to get the right stuff for pools for awhile. And the stuff you get as bleach in the store is weird. Something about the chemical plant in Lake Charles that produced it being destroyed.
I don't know what it is anymore. It is perfumey and "splashless". It bubbles. I was buying cheap stuff for awhile and it seemed like normal chlorine bleach but now I cannot even find that. As an aside vinegar has also changed and is no longer the same strength. Which will be problematic for home canners.
One benefit of the smorgasbord of reporting crazy these days: You can order off the menu for which predicted peril will end humankind or your own particular piece of it. This drives a deeper dive into crazy. For the rest of us who've seen end of the world predictions (and the flip side - life everlasting) these divers provide entertainment but not much useful knowledge.
I was having lunch with a friend yesterday and admitting I spend more time watching stuff on various conspiracy theories than regular news. I know most of it is BS, but as I told her I feel like I am more likely to get close to the actual truth there than anything on mainstream news.
One thing is certain: rising global temperatures are categorically NOT a relevant or important threat. Nuclear war certainly is. Global depression is a very real threat, and actually I mean both economic and emotional. And who knows, maybe there is a tipping point of some kind with the plastics and trash. Impossible to know. What seems most reasonable to say, though, is that the true threats can be assumed a priori to be absent from CNN and MSNBC. If it's on there, don't worry about it because it is BS.
"Seventy-two studies assessed the association between fluoride exposure and IQ in children. Nineteen of those studies were considered to be high quality; of these, 18 reported an association between higher fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children."
If this is now a Tuesday thing, this is the sort of thing I would like to see. It's not unreasonable, now, to suppose even the conspiracy theorists of the 50's were right. Maybe the Birchers were right about just about everything. I don't know everything they taught, but that there is an organized Communist conspiracy of long duration is pretty obvious, now. We're just one major pretext away from ending the American experiment in self government.
YES - pollution caused by single use plastic is the real danger as it threatens the existence of ocean life from the bottom up. The climate change religion is a distraction.
After the multifaceted ways in which the government’s handling of covid was an intentional debacle, the recent bombshell of The WPATH files brought to us by the brave Michael Shellenberger. That TFPress not only opted not to mention this , but chose to include only the question about brain development questions in kids on puberty blockers in a way that doesn’t state that the NHs just banned the use of PBS for GD all together because they are dangerous and there NEVER has been any science to justify their use in GD kids to begin with , well that is simply NOT honest reporting for a “ health series” in April 2024. This lack of coverage of The WPATH files must be addressed as it is hugely important for so many reasons.How and why could this travesty and breach of all standards to protect children have happened in the first place?
Why hasnt Shellenberger been on Honesty ( hint , he stated he is being denied coverage by MSM and now we see TFree Press is also falling down on their mission. Bias shows as much by what important stories one chooses to cover as by the stories one is silent on( or buries in an unscientific way towards the end of the kickoff health column.);
I dont think it's too late. Maybe by the time she gets to it, WPATH will be shuttering(one can dream). Shellenberger is a hero. But the stories of today are so outrageous that trans has become pase'. As parents of GD kids we see this. Our confused brainwashed kids have never mattered much. Bunch of crazy freaks who deserve mutilation.... Whatevs, on to white woman wall pilates....because THATS IMPORTANT 👌
The Free Press was out in front of the transing of kids scandal by breaking the whistleblowers stories from the gender clinics. Then they ran a big story from the Finnish psychiatrist who came clean about the lies underpinning the movement in Europe.
Why now the silence? What Nellie Sid today is a total backslide from TFree Press position on this topic and commitment to honesty and unbiased reporting regardless of the politics.
Now is the time to hold TFree Press to that promise NOW
I've read several articles now about kids in very poor urban communities--kids who already have serious mental issues--are being targeted by this market. Successfully targeted.
Too late for what? To interview Shellenberger? No, he must be given coverage.
Too late to stop the idiocy of “ gender affirming care “foe children? I don’t have that answer but we must try. The implications for each individual child is huge but the implications for society as a whole is even greater
I just meant in terms of getting him while the scoop is fresh. But yeah. Of course it's never too late. My kid and all her friends are wrapped up in this garbage.
The silence on WPATH files by Nellie and MSM is it’s own travesty. They are counting on the furor to pass quickly with the rapid news cycle. They are mistaken here. Shellenberger (non ideological);is not going to go away.Once one sees that these lying trans activist are knowingly sterilizing and butchering these kids for their own nasty , cult agenda, one can no longer stand silent .
From another perspective, if the medical community at large does not reverse course and shit these practitioners down permanently the implications for being able to rely on them to do only what is scientifically and ethically sound for all areas of medicine , are dire.
I’m disappointed that Nellie, Bari and TFree Press are abdicating their responsibility . They broke the whistleblower stories about the lies and dangers of the gender clinics. Why now are they silent? We have to keep demanding that Bari and Nellie cover this scandal. For your daughter’s sake and the thousands of others that are being seduced by these pathological crazies
Keep talking about it, this has been going on for a long time… but don’t underestimate the fact that some parents will just NOT want to ever know… what they allowed to happen to their kid…
Side note, Maybe you can help, what exactly did Shellenberg discover? That WPATH is a total scam? Been known for years. Aren’t some members like actually just perverts? I thought I read that on Reduxx last year. Is the shellenberg-Peterson YouTube interview (that I still have not had time to watch) the best way to get up to speed?
I am compelled to keep talking and posting about it. Unlike you I did not know much about the trans industry - ideology cult until about a year and a half ago.save them I have researched and studied it. I started out with an open mind and liberal viewpoint on live and let live. I truly thought that T was part of Gay and lesbian rights. I can now state with confidence that Trans is anti gay and anti women. It is supremely dangerous to troubled kids. It is a very well funded and well organized movement.
Yes , starting with Shellenberger / Peterson podcast is the best way to get up to date on what is now known.
WPATH is a self appointed activist group that cloaked itself in a white lab coat to fool the public to give there concocted lies “ credibility”
The WPATH files is a lengthy report leaked from within the organization. It shows zoom calls and texts and emails from the members themselves stating that it’s not possible to get informed consent from these kids. They state that giving the kids what they want right now is all that matters. “;we tell them it’s all reversible”. In addition they admit they are “ winging it” as they go , no science no data, no understanding or care for what this is doing the kids . The kids don’t comprehend that we will be sterile and unable to experience orgasm. and that the surgeries are dangerous and fraught with complications.
Big Pharma is seriously going after our children now. Laws attempted that give "consent" to 11 year olds, for instance. A huge problem is the whole federally sponsored "Community Schools" issue. Maine already has 30 of these schools where clinics are being installed inside schools--but they are NOT benign. This video will curl your toes. Please, please watch it.
I just watched this , Every time I think I understand how deeply entrenched the left government is ,p, I learn that it’s worse, deeper , and it’s been carefully planned and they will keep going.
I urge everyone to watch this video that shows Maine sneakily taking over to raise our kids their communist queer way.
I can’t access threat link . I’m not good with technology . If you have another suggestion to contact her please send it to me. My email is disa.sacks@gmail.com
Thank you.
I want as many of us as possible to ask The Free Press why they have backed away from the issue they broke the stories on!
I know that Schellenberger has written two pieces for TFP: “The West’s Green Delusions Empowered Putin” (3.1.22); and “Slow-Motion Suicide in San Francisco” (2.7.22).
Thanks for creating this Nellie as it has been something I have been hoping and waiting for. If we can we get more true journalism as journalism, the straight stuff, and not paid for profit propagandists, perhaps our the better future we once envisioned for all will become the reality. Appreciate all that do you to bring your perspective, skepticism and wit to my inbox. Please don’t hand this off too soon, I look forward to your words far too much. Godspeed!
We had a osteopathic doctor when I was a kid in rural Ohio. Mom used a folk medicine book that espoused the benefits of honey and apple cider vinegar before it was cool. She also switched from margarine to butter back in the late 60s. She wasn't big on exercise tho. As a Mississippian, she thought a lady should never carry anything heavier than a pillow. Good luck with this column.
That book was called, Vermont Folk Medicine. ACV and honey was pioneered by Paul Bragg, who opened the first health food store in the US. Both books are still available.
I discovered homeopathy in the early 90s out of sheer curiosity after I saw a reference to it in a biography about Laura Ingalls Wilder. And then I finally understood that when Beth (in 'Little Women') was taking belladonna, she was not trying to poison herself.
I dived deeply into studying homeopathy, and it was a big part of my home medicine toolkit while my kids were growing up. My oldest son's ADHD (which had been noticeable present almost from birth) was about 80% improved by classical homeopathic treatment over the course of 5 years, from age 4 to age 9.
But homeopathy, although it has some of the analytical trappings of science, is more of an art. Choosing the correct remedy is often a matter of seeing one particular facet of the case clearly. When my youngest daughter began having occasional seizures without a medically discernable cause, I turned to my friends in the homeopathic world for advice. Their prescriptions didn't help. Suddenly, one day, my daughter made a comment to me that brought everything into sharp clarity--I knew exactly which remedy she needed, and she never had another seizure.
Those who have used homeopathy know it works, because we've seen (and even felt) it work, if you can find the right remedy. I have to roll my eyes when people start dissing it without understanding it (but thinking they do). And of course it doesn't help that everyone has started slapping the label "homeopathic" on things that are not homeopathic at all. *headdesk*
Celia M, my silent, introspective daughter was put on Seroquel and Prozac at the age of six. When I asked how these drugs might affect her later, her doctor said, “We don’t know exactly what happens when children take these drugs, but we know what happens if they don’t,” in an ominous tone. After a few months I took her to a homeopathic doctor to help me safely wean her off them. She is graduating from college in a few weeks.
Ironically, she died pretty early from diabetes complications and dad's second hand smoke. But all of us remember her methods and even now, a bottle of ibuprofen lasts for years at my house.
As an establishment trained doctor who now questions everything from mainstream medicine, I hope this series is far reaching. Reminder, most doctors are employees in a very broken system. They don’t even have time to seek the real truth, and if they find it and speak out, they risk losing their jobs. I left the system in 2015 thank God. All glory to Him.
In my 85 years, I've only been treated by one real dr. The rest were just guessing, mostly guessed wrong, and never asked the right questions or wanted to listen to what I told them. Drs. are some of the most arrogant species on earth and I avoid them as much as possible. You may be the exception.
Medical school attracts rule followers, not critical thinkers. I was alarmed to notice this when I started med school at age 29. My classmates were very young box checkers…& many of them were arrogant. I wanted to be a primary care doctor, because my family doctor made a difference in my health/life. I was told “you are too smart for primary care” too many times to count. Medical education is flawed in many ways. In hindsight, much of it is brain washing. I trained from 99-2006. Now it is much worse. Brainwashing now includes DEI nonsense & harming children in almost all med schools(& DO schools) and residency programs.
My breakdown: most MDs have good memories but poor reasoning skills. And they’re generally terrified to do something that’s not in a book or journal. They’re what I call large database/little logic types. That’s easily 95% of doctors and surgeons. If your memory is as poor as mine is, you can’t make that work, so you have to have a very good logic machine. I do, so I’m in the maybe 3-4% that’s the small database/lotta logic group. We can do more because everything has to be reasoned/derived from the ground up. The remaining two categories exist, but represent very rare medical people.
The larger group survive and flourish because 1) most diseases are self-limiting and 2) they define the standard of care. And most are clever enough to ask for help when they’re out of their depths. Not all, though: arrogance (and greed) figure into the equation as well.
These types of Drs will be replaced by AI in the not too distant future. If all they are doing is looking at test results, determining a diagnosis and then following an accepted protocol, they are simply not needed. This is managing an illness. Critical thinking and a desire to cure illness will lead Drs to search for a root cause and educate a patient on what/how they got themselves in this position and what to do to reverse course. Functional Medicine Drs are the Drs of the future.
So true! My old doctors didn't have google so they actually practiced medicine. The new ones have no confidence in their own ability to assess situations and rarely come up with anything I could not have found myself online. They can no longer look at a patient, listen to a patient, and trust their own experience and instincts.
"...didn't have Google so they actually practiced medicine." Perfect. What happens when S*ndar Pich*i's creepy search engine goes on the fritz? Or worse, gives bad advice? I think the whole point of what they are doing in medical school now is to make us sicker, more drug dependent and surgically mutilated.
I can't even have a discussion with my ENT physician husband about statins. Dude, have some skepticism (and listen to Peter Attia.)
I demanded my extremely low-risk husband stay away from those horrible drugs that made his muscles ache and had only a 15% efficacy rate in people with his makeup. It's a racket.
Completely agree. Eating wild caught fish (not tilapia!!), limiting sweets and exercising will do much much more to improve cholesterol.
To be fair, troubleshooting is a mix of a lot of skillsets. Most doctors are not going to be great at all of them. In the same what that most mechanics can't tell you engine timing on a 1967 mustang. You have to be willing to give them a chance to research your symptoms.
If we help all doctors to the highest standards, most people would never be able to even see a doctor, because there would be about 1/100th than there are now.
I was going to comment on troubleshooting but you chimed in first. Doctors are body mechanics and considering how complex modern cars have become I'm not sure auto tmechanics don't require about the same amount of knowlege in their given profession.
God heals and the doctor collects the fee.
Render unto Cesear, etc.
"Employees in a very broken system"... wow, how true. When I first entered adulthood in the 1980s I visited a doctor whom I had found in the yellow pages. This being 1980s Long Island, his office was in the basement of a brick split-level house and consisted of him, his wife (an RN), and another employee RN. That was the entire business model. He and his staff were always available and competent when I needed things such as having an enormous wax clog removed from my ear after an business trip. He was an osteopath and the only thing odd about his exams were a couple of stretchy-bendy things he did with my arms and legs - but in retrospect, isn't that a good thing? I went to him for about 10 years for everything from depression to allergy shots (another solo-practitioner doc ran a testing center in Levittown, and prepared the serum, but individual docs gave you the jab). I even kept going to him after I moved 15 miles away. Now, I'm on Medicare, in one of those "Advantage" plans that gives you access to a $40 per month fund for OTC items such as... Flonase and vitamins. The plan also once sent a bona fide MD to my house for what seemed like a pleasant chat! I mean, just for kicks! I've moved and they've since kept trying to set that up but I say, no thanks - I don't want to strain the medical-delivery system. How is any of this an "improvement" or "achieving better outcomes" than what I received in that Long Island split level house?
Exactly. Our profession allowed the middlemen (govt, insurance, pharma…) to take over in order to make more money. Seems it was all planned a long time ago by a few greedy people who sought to control doctors. The ACA was the final nail in the coffin for our profession. Some of us predicted it. Ironically, we were called greedy, when in reality, I would make a lot more money had I continued to play the game.
I am a small business owner. In the year before the ACA, we paid $600 month for a family plan with a $10,000 deductible. I loved that high deductible plan. It encouraged us to shop doctors and focus on lowering our health costs. The ACA "outlawed" our plan. Today, we pay $2,100+ and have a $6,000 deductible. I was told the ACA was going to lower rates, but all it did was entrench the insurance companies.
We had same plan - the $2100 plus $6k deductible. We switched to MediShare 18 months ago. It's a 'share' program not officially insurance. Love the model - however I think they are crooks. SO. Back to square one.
My best personal healthcare providers have been DOs, NPs, and Nutritionists ( who are not brainwashed with the government dietary guidelines). They focus less on a pill for your ill, and more on root cause medicine.
I have Kaiser in SoCal and recently found an osteopath in Kaiser. After my long term doc retired, my husband and I went through a couple of docs who were not "our cup of tea." So far I'm happy with my osteopath.
Yes! When I was being raised in Florida by a New Jersey-bred mom and a "Florida cracker" dad, I learned from them to view osteopaths with suspicion as just a step up from chiropractors (also bad, in my parents' view). But I really liked this guy and I'm sure he's long since retired.
when i was chastised and guilt tripped for not taking the clot shot in 2021 when I was pregnant by my OBGYN. I just said over and over I wanted to wait until more data was available. AFter the 4th argument, I knew something was up. Sure enough, documents published last year showed that my doc would have been paid handsomely if I had taken it. Since i lost 5 friends to heart attacks, several more had strokes, early and insanely crazy cancers, and one friend lost their baby two days post shot, I'm glad I was strong and didn't take it.
Never took the poison covid shot. My doctor told me to never take any MNRA vaccine, nor the flu shots either. He told me this in summer 2020, six months before the shots came out. He also told me to never wear a mask, to never worry about distancing, to take Ivermectin, Hydroxychloriquin, Zinc, and Vitamin C and D every day. This was in summer 2020
Mine was the same.Was your doctor a DO, too?
Yes. DO Doctor of Osteoopathy. He can crack your back, do gene therapy, and many procedures not common to MD’s. He specializes in older folks like me and takes no insurance. He works for me, not Big Pharma or a corporate hospital network.
Same as mine! No insurance but I do the cost:benefit, I think it's a net gain!
Good
Awesome doctor!!! You’re extremely fortunate.
Hopefully someday they will do research on the "REAL" side effects. It's still too soon.
Totally agree! I was in the same general situation as you. I’ve seen more than a few people experience side effects and have witnessed the attitude of their respective healthcare providers that has been one of disbelief, the it’s all in your head, type of response. Sad.
Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud.
I think the thing that I find the most frustrating about our system is the assumption that we’re all broken and only medicine can fix us. My body is not broken, it just needs the right conditions to heal. But it takes time and patience. There doesn’t seem to be room for time and patience in the mainstream healthcare model.
I follow my GP’s conservative approach - less is more. I knew he was following his own advice when he did not mask although the “med business” he worked for made all wear one. BTW, he was reported by a patient to the “authorities” and still did not wear the face diaper.
Good plan. That is my approach. At this point, my goal is to help people stop their meds. I hired 2 NPs, one of whom studied functional medicine, so we can offer more individualized care.
My DIL is an NP who has started practicing functional medicine. It definitely seems like a reasoned approach to medicine and I’m planning on joining.
Selfishly, I'll ask you to move to Tacoma, WA and be my and my family's doctor....
Selfishly, I would ask her to move to Clarksville, IN to be my and my husband's doctor....😊
I think I am close. Crestwood, KY
You really are not too far away! Are you taking new patients?
From my Quotes File: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."
--Marcia Angell MD
This is why I have a concierge doctor who takes no insurance at all, including Medicare and Medicaid. Cash only for each visit. He loves me, not Big Pharma. He sends me to specialty doctors for procedures that do take insurance. I trust my doctor completely.
Dr. Molly, I have tremendous respect for you as a traditional doctor. My life was saved ten years ago by my own medical team. I do believe that all can benefit from a combination of both traditional western and alternative medicine in the form of the functional medicine and/or naturopathic approach. My experience has been that western medical doctors are given little or no education on the impacts of nutrition on our overall health other than the warped info coming from the USDA which is a business support org for the agri industry and definitely not a health org. My naturopathic doctors found a simple nutritional solution to a chronic issue for me while that situation had my western doctors stumped. But I would not be here today if it wasn't for the care of my traditional MD's. Best to combine both approaches imho.
Thank you. I agree. As someone raised on low fat diets & processed food, I feel healthier now than ever. Prior to covid, I was already aware of corruption in our agencies, as I was practicing in the epicenter of the opioid crisis. Then, I started to question statins and read Nina Teicholz & Dr. Jason Fung. What a wild ride…from working for Tony Fauci prior to med school to now questioning everything I was taught! I should write a book 😂
YES - please write a book!
Please do.
My husband takes statins and I'm not comfortable with them. Can you point me to some layman's research?
Find Dave Diamond, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, Dr. Ali (from Houston), Ivor Cummins (the fat emperor) videos on YouTube. Dave explains it best. He is not a doctor but was diagnosed with hyperlipidemia & told he needed a statin. Statins are oversold, and they have some terrible side effects, including insulin resistance.
I would absolutely buy and read it!
Are you now in a Direct Care practice? I pay $75 per month so see docs who listen to me and work with me, one an MD and one a DO. We disagreed a bit on the jab but I did get a prescription for IVM out of them before it was effectively banned - their licenses would have been in jeopardy here in WA State. I'm going to turn them into functional medicine docs yet.
;BRING BACK LARD IN McDONALD'S FRENCH FRIES!!!
A friend of mine recently completed med school and is now doing rotations. We were talking about health and I made the comment “I’m no doctor, just a relatively smart guy who’s pretty good at using Google.” He said I’d be surprised how many doctors are basically just that.
Good for you for taking a more noble path and questioning things. May God bless your journey.
My brother, a now "semi-retired" urologist, shares your views about being an employee of a very broken system, which is a major reason he recently semi-retired to focus his energies on commercial real estate investment.
More Nellie in my weekly reading?! Sign me up! Also, fascinating stuff here. I've worked in healthcare for over 35 years and it is painfully clear the last the the public health establishment cares about is the public's health. Very interesting insights.
I’m hoping commenters in the health professions and others can add quite a bit to this. Academia is one source of info, those in practice another, and pharma folks another… the more sources the better the discussion!
Well sure if you enjoy giddy latte leftism.
What is leftist about health?
Nothing and everything, Fork. When you practice political medicine, you're practicing politics not medicine. Lying about health outcomes for minorities to advance a political agenda is bizarre and an abomination. But they do it. For power and for lucre.
Someone didn't read the article :(
White: 10 deaths per 10,000
Black 28.3 deaths per 10,000
And? Data without investigation and thought is the life blood of people such as you.
And? Wow. Not surprised that's your response
Well, the "and" is that proves your position wrong. Which is a regular thing.
Lol!!! It's the data from the Rutgers researchers that was referenced. It's in the article Nellie linked. So, maybe you can send them an email about it?
Ignorance without examination and thought is the life blood of people such as you.
The (barely papered-over) leftism of the writer is the issue. I stopped counting the untouched shibboleths when I ran out of fingers.
Always remember, you can't have anything.
Bruce, I'm glad you're here. You're a refreshing antidote, a colonic if you will, to the harshness of KD.
Every post a verbal enema
Gee, thanks.
But I enjoy Kevin. He must be on vacation. Brast, you add so much heft to the dialogue.
The CDC got something wrong? Are we sure that is not Russian Dis-information? I am just like really, really totally stunned that the CDC got things wrong. Next you will tell me Joe isn't a true believer in Christ, his resurrection on Easter observant and prefers tranny day instead.
Why is it news that plastic is destroying everything? The island of plastic floating in the Ocean. Countries dumping their recyclables in poor third world countries. But we are meeting pollution and carbon goals? Yeah for us, we are just so good! Again, our leaderships lack of empathy and remorse is astounding. Our National Recycling is a joke as the heavy metals being dumped in landfills. We are killing the Oceans, but rest assured, we are putting more regulations on gas stoves. Idiots all!
If we all have to eat bugs, does that mean the roaches or politicians are on the plate? Soylent Green coming? Asking for a friend?
On what planet or under what rock must you live to finally believe the Government lied on COVID? Why is that even still debatable?
Democrat healthcare follows The Science (TM). Mask and jab in perpetuity. Close the gyms, churches and schools, but keep liquor stores open. No need to exercise or eat well, obese is beautiful. Fruit loops are more nutritious than eggs and bacon. People with penises can enter birthing person locker rooms and destroy them in sports. If you don’t listen to teenagers and bartenders, the world will end.
Anyone who criticizes the CDC a disinformation superspreader who must be censored and re-educated in quarantine camps: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-follow-the-science-join-the-resistanc
Obese is beautiful, but if you disagree there is a shot for that. My body, my choice.
Terry, great question! I think we can see that anything that comes from our "trusted officials" should NOT be trusted. Here are a few links for you:
How Fauci Deceived The World Twice: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/why-it-does-matter
Why Climate Change is Anti-Human: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/why-climate-change-is-wrong-dangerous
The Real Reason Depression is Rising (It's the Screens): https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/our-ocularcentric-society
Thanks for all the links
Of course! Anytime!
If eating a bug is disgusting imagine the horror of consuming an oleaginous and slimy politician.
I’ve heard it said that you can eat anything if you know how to cook it. I believe you’ve hit on the exception to the rule.
God no!
Where are the hungry alligators roaming the swamp when you need them?
"oleaginous" what a great word.
Example: "compro is an oleaginous left wing fanatic."
Eventually the bugs will hold their noses and eat them too; as they will, eventually, eat all of us.
They’re fuel, not food.
Based on Rupa Supramanya's article yesterday about euthanasia, soylent green does not seem very 'out there.'
Wait until the "It tastes like chicken!" piece comes out in the NY TImes food section.
I wouldn't eat them as bugs - those politicians are too old and bitter
Butter and garlic can always help!!
Always...but why waste it?
It seems like they’re eating their own, these days.
There is no such thing as too much garlic.
I went to a restaurant some years ago that had a sign posted at the entrance that said, "If you do not like garlic, go home." It was great.
You're on a tear this morning Terry! Awesome comment! How long will the mainstream media propaganda machine stay propped up anyway?
I’ve spent 15 years working on making packaging more sustainable. This topic is rife with charlatans pushing agendas.
I would proceed with caution and skepticism on the perils of plastics. Not because there are none, but because, I feel, researchers generally have a ‘plastic = bad’ starting point.
Also common in the impact of plastic assessments is an acknowledgment that plastic isn’t a single thing it’s a category of materials. Do we confuse gold with steel with lead? They’re all metals! Yet PVC = Polyester = the HDPE used for milk jugs.
Another factor often glossed over is the impact of the alternatives. A glass jar weighs 4x that of a plastic jar and 10x that of a pouch. Let’s use paper some say! Shelf life goes to crap and the paper coatings used to provide some oxygen or moisture barrier make recycling that paper difficult.
Finally, are the microplastics from your food container or your hoodie? Make sure you know the source before the banning starts.
Let me know if you have any questions on PCR and recycling. I’m a fan of both, but like life, it’s complicated.
Thank you for this detailed information. Nellie should contact you to contribute to our understanding of this hyped topic. Please keep commenting to educate us .
Mickel, you are correct! I hear environmentalists before Congress DEMANDING petroleum/oil be banned, in order to “save the world” yet, when asked WHAT ALL they are willing to do without, they look stunned & sound ignorant.
Beginning in the mid 1970s, my family owned a Plastic Injection Molding Company. We bought TONS of plastic pellets, made, of course, from petroleum/oil. It’s how plastic is made.
We manufactured everything from medical supplies to Polo balls, and shoes/flip flops, zippers, bottles, jugs, lamp parts, coffee pot parts, those little umbrella drink decorations, etc., etc., etc., and list goes on & on & on!
When the environmentalist was asked, point blank, just what all she had with her was she willing to ban Americans from. Ironically, they had NO IDEA that everything they had on and with them = plastic = shoes, handbag, eyeglasses, water bottle (yes, it was stainless steel BUT THE LID WAS PLASTIC), even parts in her iPhone!
Thank you for this comment.
Thanks for the comment and for your work. Personally I think the solution is more local, less shipped from wherever.
I remember when milk in glass bottles was delivered to a special box on our front porch.
Yes and I also remember when milk was really fresh and didn't have a shelf life of two weeks. How does that happen?
This is why I bought my own cow
I am not a big milk drinker but my husband is. We got a new fridge and he started complaining that the milk tasted funny. Turns out LED lights will affect the taste. I am back to buying in cartons and I get no complaints from him.
That's interesting, I won't buy milk at any Costco here in San Diego because it smells and tastes funny to me. No one else complains!
Local food supplies. Once we had a national highway system, it was possible to ship food long distances. Consumers liked having more choices; they got spoiled by all the things they could buy.
Same - an uninsulated, metal box.
Celia, me too!
Thank you for this helpful perspective. A good reminder that when something sounds exceedingly ridiculous, “why don’t we just quit doing that?” There’s always a more complicated “rest of the story”!
I remember the day my mother (so joyfully) purchased Johnson's Baby Shamppo in a plastic bottle and brought it home to our bathroom (for 6 kids). She no longer had to worry about broken glass bottles on the bathroom floor and in the tub!!! She didn't have to stay in the bathroom with all of us and dole out shampoo portions from the glass bottle. Sometimes it's the small things, and the invention of plastic containers is one of those for which many of us are grateful. Perhaps it's now gone too far. People are careless and lazy with their trash. But we can work on that, as Mr. Knight is doing.
Thank you for this sensible comment. “PCR” - polymerase chain reaction? 🙃
Post Consumer Recyle. Plastic products used by an end user that is recycled for reuse. Polyester, think coke bottles, are recyclable without much deterioration in properties. Unfortunately, we only recycle about 28% of PET (polyester) bottles. Polyethylene, think milk jugs or bread bags, are also recyclable. However, much like paper fibers, their properties and aesthetics degrade with each recycling.
Advanced, or chemical, recycling is becoming more feasible, albeit expensive. There, plastic is essentially converted back into an oil which is used to make ‘virgin’ plastic.
Living in the dysfunctional urban circus of Chicago, I do wonder if tossing my empty seltzer bottles in the blue bin actually results in their being recycled.
Unfortunately, that's a maybe. We used to ship most of our plastic waste to China. Municipalities could make money selling poorly sorted waste. In 2017 China enacted their 'Green Sword' policy and stopped taking other people's waste streams. The market for bales of waste of all types cratered. Folks couldn't make money recycling, so some municipalities stopped doing it - either officially or behind closed doors.
On the plus side, most recycled bottles are PET a feed stream that folks can make money on. Rigid HDPE bottles are also common and is another viable feed stream. The odds that these are recycled are higher than other scrap types.
A quick google didn't find anything very recent but here's a short article covering the PCR market.
https://resource-recycling.com/recycling/2023/03/13/scrap-plastic-prices-rise-notably-this-month/
One of my main professional goals is to make recycling something people and business want to do, not have to do. Folks who want to do stuff are more likely to... well do stuff.
If you have any sensible tips about recycling or plastics in general, I’m all ears. I try to recycle, if it’s not too difficult. I prefer to reuse stuff if possible. I have an un-recyclable plastic box, which formerly held dishwasher pods, in my car because it makes a great car garbage can.
Many, but here's a few.
Every waste type is a contaminate for the other waste types. 'Wish-cycling' putting all sorts of stuff in your recycle bin and hoping likely causes more harm than good. Can the sorting equipment separate the unrecyclable stuff? Bales of recyclable material (plastic, paper, anything) have to have very low contamination content to be salable. Know what is accepted in your area and err on the side of caution.
For instance, we cannot put plastic bags in the curbside bin because it gets separated with the paper and contaminates that stream. However, many plastic bags are recyclable through a store drop off program. Many stores have these bins. A month's worth of recyclable plastic bags weighs about a pound and underscores how efficient this packaging format is. My Trex Deck is 50% recycled store drop-off material and I never need to stain it.
https://how2recycle.info/about-the-how2recycle-label/store-drop-off-us-only/
Finally, recyclable and biodegradable are completely completely completely (yes written three times!) different. Do not cross these streams (yes intentional reference).
I use the plastic bags for garbage cans. The amount of plastic bags coming in my home about equals the amount going out.
I think there needs to be better education on recycling. Seattle does a pretty good job, but I think it could be better. I like the coffee shops that have pictures of the actual garbage/recyclables they use in-house above the bin they go in. Make it easy on me, if I have to spend more than three seconds thinking about it, it’s going in the garbage.
I've seen data that areas that enact bag bans see an increase in the purchasing of small trash bags. HDPE grocery bags are very recyclable via store drop-off. However, using that bag a second time (or more!) is much better than buying a single use bag.
Is it my imagination, or has the whole issue of microplastics become a media bugaboo in just the past year or so? I don't recall seeing the term in popular use before.
For those of us graybeards who remember the Alar scare of the late 80's, I wonder if this issue has similarly been ginned up by an "environmental" group.
Microplastics are a big deal and have been a topic for more than a few years. Personally, I am very concerned about them, but also skeptical of many of the messengers on the topic. Plastics break down as they get oxidized in the environment. Ever notice a very old plastic part can be very brittle? It's oxidized. The industry has gotten better at designing more robust plastics and additives which prevent this, but it's still a thing.
As a plastic breaks down, it can break into parts, which break into smaller parts, eventually becoming 'micro-plastics'. Depending on the plastic and the size of the particle, these tiny plastic particles may be digested by bacteria becoming harmless byproducts - the particles are composted. I didn't say biodegradable, that's a legal term, I said compostable. Biodegradable plastics compost in a given time period under given conditions. Plastic particles that don't go to compost - how long are they around for? What is their impact? These are important questions.
Michael, you are a wealth of info about plastics recycling. Perhaps Nellie should profile you in a coming edition of this newsletter.
That would be fun. I know a lot about a lot in this field. Enough to know that other folks in this field can easily know more than I do on any given topic. I've tried to keep my responses high level for both folks ease of understanding and to avoid any egregious mistakes.
You have succeeded.
Thank you, I appreciate the informative response.
(One of the problems of the legacy media's addiction to crying wolf - and the NGO complex's vested interest in crying wolf - is that occasionally, there might be a wolf at the door. I need to remember that.)
Plastic is gross and best to limit it as much as you can
If I buy something & have a choice to buy glass, I buy glass. For example: olive oil, tomato sauce, baby food for my baby, coffee, basically any food that I have a choice to not buy plastic, I don't.
I am a physician, and Covid completely changed how I view medical literature. I’m embarrassed to say how often I just blindly accepted the various dictums from the “established” medical community. No longer. Those “wacky” researchers on the periphery? Turns out they deserve at least a listen.
I can relate. I have recently been led down the forbidden childhood vaccine rabbit hole & it’s disturbing. When the tyrants started pushing the covid shot on kids, I woke up. Unfortunately I had been brainwashed enough to give my kids several shots they did not need.
Osteoporosis drugs scare me. Horrible side effects and risks. Within my relatively small sphere of family and friends, every woman who has taken them has had serious issues, including spontaneous fractures. My dentist requires patients on bone meds to sign release forms before any dental work is done. In Japan vit k2 is prescribed for osteoporosis. The drug companies won’t like that idea.
What made you skeptical if you do not mind the inquiry?
Oy osteoporosis - if you think about it - why do we even handle it this way? We do not screen for it until 65 - then you need to "treat" it with problematic medications - and meanwhile we do nothing to share good info about nutrition, types of exercise, or even hormone therapy that can be employed years before a fracture to reduce its risk. It's kind of mind boggling! Oh and the drugs are often prescribed wihtout even acknowledging that there are essential nutrtional/vitamin and movement requrirements of our bodies to make our bones last longer. So frustrating.
It is. We do not receive preventative care fro..our health service providers. I think one of the best things to do is be evaluated by a nutritionist periodically to check for
vitamin/mineral and other deficiencies.
Seriously. Not enough women are told about the bone-building benefits of strength training & lifting weights. Why take harmful drugs?
Being just another clueless skeptic with no idea what to believe anymore, I salute TFP for trying to figure it all out. More power to ya!
When healthcare is for profit, we all suffer. I just received a survey from my last urgent care visit. They didn't care at all about the care I had received. No. It was a survey about my perceptions of healthcare concerns in "our community." It had questions about how much access I thought my community members had to various aspects of mental and physical health care. WTF?! I consider this a DEI fishing expedition.
When I get any survey...I check all boxes...jam up the data collection...I am every gender, every color, every earning category, I am unsafe at home, I am safe at home, I am homeless, I live in a mansion...ugh...it is endless.
I just throw it in the trash.
you are my spirit animal. thank you for doing god's work.
It is more nuanced. I own a “for profit” practice, but it is membership based. My patients pay me monthly. I am incentivized to keep them healthy. Also, “non profit” hospitals are often the most egregious price gougers. Medical care became more expensive as soon as we let the govt in and as soon as doctors decided to bill insurance for their care. I encourage you to read about the Surgery Center or Oklahoma and also Direct Primary Care. (Don’t read a WaPo article about it)
After having the same cardiologist for 30 yrs. I'm thinking of looking fir one that's NOT owned by a hospital system.
It's a constant referral to other doctors for a myriad of things. I think the "Standard of Care" is nothing more than a checklist of what "hospital" doctors can bill for and which doctor "in the system" they can refer you to, next.
It's so disheartening.
Finding independent specialists is especially challenging. The govt (ACA) made owning a medical practice nearly impossible. Direct care (billing the patient) is the easiest way to make it work. Few people understand that the care we provide is actually cheaper than using insurance. Once people understand this, they will drop the insurance. This is why the architects of ACA had to mandate insurance. Coverage is not care, and healthcare is not a right.
Thank you.
There are way too many hands and sleight of hands in the haelthcare and health insurance industries.
How can any legitimate billing for a $300,000 procedure be settled with a $30,000 insurance payment? I don't think any patient actually knows how the billing and reimbursement systems work or what the actual costs are, let alone what the true value it is supposedly providing.
That information is considered a trade secret.
This is definitely food for thought. I always thought having insurance cover every doctor's visit for every tiny ailment was a prescription for disaster, even when it came in the form of a PPO or HMO. I grew up in Coastal Florida in the 1960s, in a big family, with a dad with a government job and a mom who stayed at home. My dad's insurance did not cover doctor's visits - for those he had to write a check. I would concede that this made my family a bit slipshod in the dental department - my sibs always had perfect teeth, and still do, to this day, but my mom and me were the subject of expensive visits to the dentist. I didn't get my twisted incisors straightened until I was in my 20s and that was on my own dime. In the early 2000s, after a job loss I was now supporting my own family also with a stay at home wife. I managed to get hired, but my new job was a contract role. I had to purchase a health plan with my own funds, and the best alternative was straight hospitalization coverage - an option that I believe is no longer available. Because the job was on Long Island, I started seeing the same DO I had visited in the 1980s - and because I didn't "go through the insurance system", his fee was fifty bucks. My kids' pediatrician was a bit richer, at $75. I do see the wisdom in having a system like that: those fees are less than what most people spend on their TV plan or phones in a given month.
Amen!! Healthcare is not a right! Thank you for having the courage to say that!!
THIS!
In times past, in China, the dr. was paid while the person was well. If they became ill, the dr. wasn't paid. Good incentive for drs. to help the people stay well.
Concierge medicine seems like the wave of the future for those who want actual medical care.
OK I asked earlier in this thread if you had a Direct Care practice and I see you do. In the past couple years, the docs in my Direct Care clinic suddenly have a huge waiting list, and that's with having brought in another MD. And many of their patients are on Medicare. We don't mind paying additional monthly fees to get old fashioned care with 1/2 hr appointments.
Is it true that Big Pharma mostly operates the mandatory yearly continuing ed required of MDs?
Wait. What? I can have membership to a doctor? How do I find that? What do I type into the Google box?
Dpcfrontier.com
Actually we all have to make a living. I'd say when profit is the primary motive of health care, it becomes bad, possibly even evil! If good health is the primary motive of health care, then it's fine for the doctor to make a living out of it. That's what all the independent doctors who've been forced out of the system (by the crazy Covid laws) are doing. They couldn't be independent if they couldn't make a living out of practising their art. A totally non profit medical system would have all sorts of problems - central control, waste etc etc. Capitalism (or at least earning our way) is traditional. We have learnt however that we also need some control to stop monopolies. and quackery. Monopolistic socialism is also a problem. We need a bit of this and a bit of that - nuance and balance. Keep things human and as local as possible.
“I'd say when profit is the primary motive of health care, it becomes bad, possibly even evil!”
As we learned from the enormously talented Boeing whistleblower whose death was ruled a suicide-possibly the “Epstein” type-health and safety take a backseat in the boardrooms of corporate America. That he would dare point out troubling facts to his bosses and be labeled an “asshole” by the CEO is just another example of experts disrupting the profiteering process. Much like the example of COVID .
There was a time when most doctors were no wealthier than other people.
“On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate the cleanliness of our facility?
On a scale of 1-10 how friendly would you rate our staff?”
Getting those 5 stars on Google is what it’s all about.
For-profit + Obamacare = Rupa Subramanya’s “ I’m 28 and Scheduled to Die in May.”
It is all very sad. Healthcare for profit is so very sick
Yes, the VA is a model of efficiency and altruism!
As are all govt. agencies.
My experience with the VA medical system has repeatedly shown me that the VA has mastered the art of medical punting.
I've yet to have ONE visit with my primary care Dr. That didn't result in me being passed off to someone else.
The position seems better suited to a triage nurse.
I think health care providers deserve to be paid. The question is/was how much? But I think injecting third party for-profit entities to administer health care was foolhardy. It created health business as opposed to health care. Dr. Rutherford being the rare, and IMO laudable, exception.
To me that IS the problem. Because it means that medical doctors have ceded control of medical decision making to the insurance companies. I already had issues with this pre-covid when every visit required my consent to share my medical info. Post-covid I am paralyzed with concern. Reading Dr. Rs comments gives me hope.
Another Slippery Slope: Back When, it was called "hospitalization;" true to the original concept of Insurance, it indemnified the unfortunate victim of a rare event with monies paid by a large pool of policyholders who had no expectation of collecting (and frankly would much rather not). One was expected to cover "normal" expenses (sniffles and minor repair work) oneself. The distortions that have arisen are legion, but the Original Sin was the AMA and its ilk deciding that being paid by a deep-pocketed entity was worth handing one's autonomy to that entity. Sad.
Why do you think that when there is no profit motive healthcare is better?
Free focus group research.
Love that you are reading Weston Price! Now get Nina Teicholz to do a piece! 🩷
Yes ! And Gary Taubes! Both are a wealth of useful information!
I only drink the big jugs of water you get at Home Depot. Your home water has chloramine in it, which you can't get out, and which is probably mildly bad for you. I also think that if fluoride is toxic in high doses to the nervous system (it is), then smaller doses are probably not good for anyone. My personal view, and this issue is not settled as far as I know, is that fluoridated toothpaste probably provides plenty of fluoride for kids, particularly if they get fluoride treatments at their dentists.
And I don't use plastic to store anything. I use glass. I don't heat anything, usually (I break this rule sometimes) with plastic on it, and definitely not IN plastic.
I do think the plastic issue is a large one. It's in our oceans. String caught tuna, out there in the wild, may contain meaningful amounts of plastic, and certainly mercury. Most health experts now say that eating tuna every day is unhealthy. That's crazy.
To my mind, trash and plastics are the true global challenges. Global warming is a stupid joke only perpetuated by the effectiveness of our colleges in teaching compliance. The science underlying it is mockworthy, if that is a word.
But as was recently mentioned, trash and plastic get zero mindspace any more even with "environmentalists", because the world is going to burn up. Or change. There may be more hurricanes, or maybe not. Oceans will rise, or maybe not, but whatever it is will be bad, and once it happens we will tell that's just what we were predicting.
Oi.
"I also think that if fluoride is toxic in high doses to the nervous system (it is), then smaller doses are probably not good for anyone."
Well.... As a pharmacist friend once told me: The first rule of pharmacy is that EVERYTHING is a poison, at extreme doses. Even water.
(That said, you may have convinced me to get my water at Home Depot.)
That's true. Some Vitamins will kill you in high enough doses.
Still, drinking water is not a very effective way to get fluoride onto teeth, and the neurotoxological effects are most pronounced with the very young. For adults, I don't think water fluoridation makes much difference. For kids, it may. The data seems to point that way, and I think a good case can be made that even if it DID make sense in the 50's, with modern toothpastes and dental practices it no longer does.
And I wish they would go back to Chlorine. You can cook that out of the water. I don't allocate much mindspace to all this though.
I think chlorine as it used to be is gone. It was almost impossible to get the right stuff for pools for awhile. And the stuff you get as bleach in the store is weird. Something about the chemical plant in Lake Charles that produced it being destroyed.
Bleach is chlorine, isnt it? I know small amounts can be used in an emergency for water purification.
I don't know what it is anymore. It is perfumey and "splashless". It bubbles. I was buying cheap stuff for awhile and it seemed like normal chlorine bleach but now I cannot even find that. As an aside vinegar has also changed and is no longer the same strength. Which will be problematic for home canners.
If "mockworthy" wasn't a word before, it certainly is now. Good job.
One benefit of the smorgasbord of reporting crazy these days: You can order off the menu for which predicted peril will end humankind or your own particular piece of it. This drives a deeper dive into crazy. For the rest of us who've seen end of the world predictions (and the flip side - life everlasting) these divers provide entertainment but not much useful knowledge.
I was having lunch with a friend yesterday and admitting I spend more time watching stuff on various conspiracy theories than regular news. I know most of it is BS, but as I told her I feel like I am more likely to get close to the actual truth there than anything on mainstream news.
One thing is certain: rising global temperatures are categorically NOT a relevant or important threat. Nuclear war certainly is. Global depression is a very real threat, and actually I mean both economic and emotional. And who knows, maybe there is a tipping point of some kind with the plastics and trash. Impossible to know. What seems most reasonable to say, though, is that the true threats can be assumed a priori to be absent from CNN and MSNBC. If it's on there, don't worry about it because it is BS.
Just read this over at InfoWars. Not likely to be covered most other places. I pulled the link out of the article: https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/about_ntp/bsc/2023/fluoride/documents_provided_bsc_wg_031523.pdf
"Seventy-two studies assessed the association between fluoride exposure and IQ in children. Nineteen of those studies were considered to be high quality; of these, 18 reported an association between higher fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children."
If this is now a Tuesday thing, this is the sort of thing I would like to see. It's not unreasonable, now, to suppose even the conspiracy theorists of the 50's were right. Maybe the Birchers were right about just about everything. I don't know everything they taught, but that there is an organized Communist conspiracy of long duration is pretty obvious, now. We're just one major pretext away from ending the American experiment in self government.
“To my mind, trash and plastics are the true global challenges.” 💯
YES - pollution caused by single use plastic is the real danger as it threatens the existence of ocean life from the bottom up. The climate change religion is a distraction.
And why does the Home Depot water not have chloramine?
It never ran through any pipes. The chloramine is added by the water companies.
It has some merit. Its not an obviously horrible idea. But I personally think water without it is better.
I am absolutely thrilled about this new series! Excellent, excellent work!
I think you are developing natural immunity to TDS!
I think Nellie is developing natural immunity to TDS! Yay!
Processed food is bad. White sugar bad. Natural foods good. Moderate exercise good. Being in community good
If you are concerned about children’s brains you better look long and hard at phones
One piece of advice I give my patients: “Be very careful picking your parents, it is one of the most important decisions you’ll make”
This is awesome!
Also, Nellie, my now 6 year-old’s favorite snack as a toddler was “butter in a bowl!” 😁
My daughter (3yo) wants to eat all the fat off of my steaks. That and hard boiled eggs are her favorites!
Once again Nellie, you had me at “prechewed by ideology!”
After the multifaceted ways in which the government’s handling of covid was an intentional debacle, the recent bombshell of The WPATH files brought to us by the brave Michael Shellenberger. That TFPress not only opted not to mention this , but chose to include only the question about brain development questions in kids on puberty blockers in a way that doesn’t state that the NHs just banned the use of PBS for GD all together because they are dangerous and there NEVER has been any science to justify their use in GD kids to begin with , well that is simply NOT honest reporting for a “ health series” in April 2024. This lack of coverage of The WPATH files must be addressed as it is hugely important for so many reasons.How and why could this travesty and breach of all standards to protect children have happened in the first place?
Why hasnt Shellenberger been on Honesty ( hint , he stated he is being denied coverage by MSM and now we see TFree Press is also falling down on their mission. Bias shows as much by what important stories one chooses to cover as by the stories one is silent on( or buries in an unscientific way towards the end of the kickoff health column.);
Holding out hope that Bari will interview him or Mia Hughes for a podcast episode. Do you think it's too late?
I dont think it's too late. Maybe by the time she gets to it, WPATH will be shuttering(one can dream). Shellenberger is a hero. But the stories of today are so outrageous that trans has become pase'. As parents of GD kids we see this. Our confused brainwashed kids have never mattered much. Bunch of crazy freaks who deserve mutilation.... Whatevs, on to white woman wall pilates....because THATS IMPORTANT 👌
The Free Press was out in front of the transing of kids scandal by breaking the whistleblowers stories from the gender clinics. Then they ran a big story from the Finnish psychiatrist who came clean about the lies underpinning the movement in Europe.
Why now the silence? What Nellie Sid today is a total backslide from TFree Press position on this topic and commitment to honesty and unbiased reporting regardless of the politics.
Now is the time to hold TFree Press to that promise NOW
I've read several articles now about kids in very poor urban communities--kids who already have serious mental issues--are being targeted by this market. Successfully targeted.
Too late for what? To interview Shellenberger? No, he must be given coverage.
Too late to stop the idiocy of “ gender affirming care “foe children? I don’t have that answer but we must try. The implications for each individual child is huge but the implications for society as a whole is even greater
I just meant in terms of getting him while the scoop is fresh. But yeah. Of course it's never too late. My kid and all her friends are wrapped up in this garbage.
The silence on WPATH files by Nellie and MSM is it’s own travesty. They are counting on the furor to pass quickly with the rapid news cycle. They are mistaken here. Shellenberger (non ideological);is not going to go away.Once one sees that these lying trans activist are knowingly sterilizing and butchering these kids for their own nasty , cult agenda, one can no longer stand silent .
From another perspective, if the medical community at large does not reverse course and shit these practitioners down permanently the implications for being able to rely on them to do only what is scientifically and ethically sound for all areas of medicine , are dire.
I’m disappointed that Nellie, Bari and TFree Press are abdicating their responsibility . They broke the whistleblower stories about the lies and dangers of the gender clinics. Why now are they silent? We have to keep demanding that Bari and Nellie cover this scandal. For your daughter’s sake and the thousands of others that are being seduced by these pathological crazies
Second paragraph, 1st sentence, you probably menat to say "shut," but it's a good Freudian slip.
Keep talking about it, this has been going on for a long time… but don’t underestimate the fact that some parents will just NOT want to ever know… what they allowed to happen to their kid…
Side note, Maybe you can help, what exactly did Shellenberg discover? That WPATH is a total scam? Been known for years. Aren’t some members like actually just perverts? I thought I read that on Reduxx last year. Is the shellenberg-Peterson YouTube interview (that I still have not had time to watch) the best way to get up to speed?
I am compelled to keep talking and posting about it. Unlike you I did not know much about the trans industry - ideology cult until about a year and a half ago.save them I have researched and studied it. I started out with an open mind and liberal viewpoint on live and let live. I truly thought that T was part of Gay and lesbian rights. I can now state with confidence that Trans is anti gay and anti women. It is supremely dangerous to troubled kids. It is a very well funded and well organized movement.
Yes , starting with Shellenberger / Peterson podcast is the best way to get up to date on what is now known.
WPATH is a self appointed activist group that cloaked itself in a white lab coat to fool the public to give there concocted lies “ credibility”
The WPATH files is a lengthy report leaked from within the organization. It shows zoom calls and texts and emails from the members themselves stating that it’s not possible to get informed consent from these kids. They state that giving the kids what they want right now is all that matters. “;we tell them it’s all reversible”. In addition they admit they are “ winging it” as they go , no science no data, no understanding or care for what this is doing the kids . The kids don’t comprehend that we will be sterile and unable to experience orgasm. and that the surgeries are dangerous and fraught with complications.
It’s all in the files in their own words
Big Pharma is seriously going after our children now. Laws attempted that give "consent" to 11 year olds, for instance. A huge problem is the whole federally sponsored "Community Schools" issue. Maine already has 30 of these schools where clinics are being installed inside schools--but they are NOT benign. This video will curl your toes. Please, please watch it.
https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/events/parental-rights-under-attack-in-maine/parental-rights-under-attack-in-maine/?utm_source=luminate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=chdtv&utm_id=20240401
I just watched this , Every time I think I understand how deeply entrenched the left government is ,p, I learn that it’s worse, deeper , and it’s been carefully planned and they will keep going.
I urge everyone to watch this video that shows Maine sneakily taking over to raise our kids their communist queer way.
Thank you Louise Enright for providing the link.
I did! Thank you, Louise!
Send her your suggestion at health@thefp.com. If she gets it enough she will take notice I would think.
Edited to correct the link. Apologies.
I can’t access threat link . I’m not good with technology . If you have another suggestion to contact her please send it to me. My email is disa.sacks@gmail.com
Thank you.
I want as many of us as possible to ask The Free Press why they have backed away from the issue they broke the stories on!
I had a typo. I am so sorry DS. It is
health@thefp.com.
I know that Schellenberger has written two pieces for TFP: “The West’s Green Delusions Empowered Putin” (3.1.22); and “Slow-Motion Suicide in San Francisco” (2.7.22).
Thanks for creating this Nellie as it has been something I have been hoping and waiting for. If we can we get more true journalism as journalism, the straight stuff, and not paid for profit propagandists, perhaps our the better future we once envisioned for all will become the reality. Appreciate all that do you to bring your perspective, skepticism and wit to my inbox. Please don’t hand this off too soon, I look forward to your words far too much. Godspeed!
We had a osteopathic doctor when I was a kid in rural Ohio. Mom used a folk medicine book that espoused the benefits of honey and apple cider vinegar before it was cool. She also switched from margarine to butter back in the late 60s. She wasn't big on exercise tho. As a Mississippian, she thought a lady should never carry anything heavier than a pillow. Good luck with this column.
That book was called, Vermont Folk Medicine. ACV and honey was pioneered by Paul Bragg, who opened the first health food store in the US. Both books are still available.
I discovered homeopathy in the early 90s out of sheer curiosity after I saw a reference to it in a biography about Laura Ingalls Wilder. And then I finally understood that when Beth (in 'Little Women') was taking belladonna, she was not trying to poison herself.
I dived deeply into studying homeopathy, and it was a big part of my home medicine toolkit while my kids were growing up. My oldest son's ADHD (which had been noticeable present almost from birth) was about 80% improved by classical homeopathic treatment over the course of 5 years, from age 4 to age 9.
But homeopathy, although it has some of the analytical trappings of science, is more of an art. Choosing the correct remedy is often a matter of seeing one particular facet of the case clearly. When my youngest daughter began having occasional seizures without a medically discernable cause, I turned to my friends in the homeopathic world for advice. Their prescriptions didn't help. Suddenly, one day, my daughter made a comment to me that brought everything into sharp clarity--I knew exactly which remedy she needed, and she never had another seizure.
Those who have used homeopathy know it works, because we've seen (and even felt) it work, if you can find the right remedy. I have to roll my eyes when people start dissing it without understanding it (but thinking they do). And of course it doesn't help that everyone has started slapping the label "homeopathic" on things that are not homeopathic at all. *headdesk*
Celia M, my silent, introspective daughter was put on Seroquel and Prozac at the age of six. When I asked how these drugs might affect her later, her doctor said, “We don’t know exactly what happens when children take these drugs, but we know what happens if they don’t,” in an ominous tone. After a few months I took her to a homeopathic doctor to help me safely wean her off them. She is graduating from college in a few weeks.
I wonder how your mom's health was...probably long and healthy! She sounds smart and balanced and had the right ideas!
Ironically, she died pretty early from diabetes complications and dad's second hand smoke. But all of us remember her methods and even now, a bottle of ibuprofen lasts for years at my house.
Mine is 10+ yrs out of date and works
My doctor said medicines and medications are effective long after their so called expiration dates.
Without exercising, probably not great I would think.
Homeopathy is magic water. Maybe you're confusing it with "natural remedies"?
You are absolutely correct. I used the wrong term for his field . He was an osteopathic doctor....I asked my sibling about it.
I miss ladies like your mom.
Yes, the women were also part of the greatest generation.