Blind Spots, Havana Syndrome: Part 2
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it. —
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON
Quick: What does the Peanut Allergy epidemic have in common with Havana Syndrome?
If you guessed that the Government fell victim in each case to groupthink, you’re on the right track. Groupthink is a psychological crowd phenomenon that drives harmony or conformity in a group, but which results sometimes in irrational, dysfunctional, selfish, blind, and/or factually inaccurate and anti-science decision-making outcomes.
Blind Spots, a recent book by Marty Makary, is an in-depth analysis of how medicine gets it so wrong in some significant public health cases, frequently due to groupthink. Specifically, in the chapter “A Comedy of Errors,” Makary relates how his team “noted the same patterns of medical elites ruling by edict and kneecapping the brave souls who challenged their dogma.”
Blind Spots follows in a long line of exposes about the shortcomings of medicine, particularly with regard to closed-minded disregard for new ideas, science, evidence, data, peer-reviewed research, and the costs of delay. Even before the advent of the so-called “gold standard” of science, the Randomized Controlled Trial, medical societies worked overtime to hew to the party line. The lists of “authoritative misinformation” were partially captured in Medical Breakthroughs That Were Initially Ridiculed or Rejected.
Who can forget the obvious ones: germ theory; blood circulation; mosquitos as vectors for “mal aria”; vaccinations; neonatal warmers; HAND WASHING; hPylori vs. “stress” ulcers; Vitamin C to cure scurvy; gene therapy and the mRNA vaccine; and now “peanut allergy.”
According to Dr. Makary and [finally] the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a foundation paper on the cause of the “peanut epidemic” was flawed. A panic swept the US. “Suddenly, emergency department visits for peanut anaphylaxis—a life-threatening allergic swelling of the airways—skyrocketed, and schools began enacting peanut bans. By 2007, 18% of Virginia schools had banned peanuts altogether.”
Sadly, avoiding eating peanuts by children before age three, as the AAP recommended, exacerbated the epidemic rather than avoided it. A Dr. Steven Combs in Tennessee, trained by Dr. Rebecca Buckley at Duke Medical Center, recognized that the AAP advice in 2000 “violated a basic principle of immunology known as immune tolerance: the body’s natural way of accepting foreign molecules present early in life. It’s like the dirt theory, whereby newborns exposed to dirt, dander, and germs may then have lower allergy and asthma risks.” In a phrase: “peanut abstinence doesn’t prevent peanut allergies, it causes them!”
It took the AAP 17 years to come to its senses and ANOTHER two years for the august NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) division to issue a report supporting the reversal.
Unsurprisingly, no apologies were issued to the millions of children negatively affected by the bad science and public policy. Nor did makers of EpiPens – an antidote to the peanut anaphylaxis – apologize or refund the massively inflated costs of EpiPens that accompanied the epidemic. Not for the first time did entire new markets and “needs” accompany the announcement of a manufactured epidemic. Think Purdue Pharma and the role of oxycodone to meet their invented “pain epidemic.”
All this misguided “science” that leads to misdirection in medical practice is a good segue to the current medical and policy debate in a running gun battle with reports of “Havana Syndrome”, aka Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI).
As we discussed last week, AHI investigations have officially devolved to a monotonous repetition of seemingly rehearsed responses to ailments reported by hundreds of victims. There exists a whole cohort of scientists who find conclusive evidence of physical damage in people who have come forward complaining of AHI-like symptoms. They are pitted against another institutional group of Agencies which deviate dramatically from scientific evidence as they seek explanations in psychological dismissal of damaged victims:
“Compared to controls, participants with AHIs self-reported significantly increased symptoms of fatigue, post-traumatic stress and depression. Forty-one percent of participants in the AHI group, from nearly every geographic area, met the criteria for functional neurological disorders (FNDs), a group of common neurological movement disorders caused by an abnormality in how the brain functions, or had significant somatic symptoms. FNDs can be associated with depression and anxiety, and high stress. Most of the AHI group with FND met specific criteria to enable the diagnosis of persistent postural-perceptual dizziness, also known as PPPD. Symptoms of PPPD include dizziness, non-spinning vertigo and fluctuating unsteadiness provoked by environmental or social stimuli that cannot be explained by some other neurologic disorder.
“The post-traumatic stress and mood symptoms reported are not surprising given the ongoing concerns of many of the participants,” said Louis French, Psy.D., neuropsychologist and deputy director of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and a co-investigator on the study. “Often these individuals have had significant disruption to their lives and continue to have concerns about their health and their future. This level of stress can have significant negative impacts on the recovery process……”
“It is possible that individuals with an AHI may be experiencing the results of an event that led to their symptoms, but the injury did not produce the long-term neuroimaging changes that are typically observed after severe trauma or stroke. We hope these results will alleviate concerns about AHI being associated with severe neurodegenerative changes in the brain.”
It should not need to be said that seldom do Concussions or TBIs show up on imaging, yet evidence builds that brain wounding blasts and physical insults when untreated can and do lead to long-term brain deterioration and death. Add in newer evidence of capabilities of sonic weapons and pulsed energy and electromagnetic Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) for use against humans.
But forget for the moment that researchers can’t agree on what has caused the symptoms experienced by hundreds of diplomats suffering from AHIs. A casual use of Chat GPT or any AI-enabled search will turn up endless articles on competing theories about causes of AHI. What is absolutely true is that US and many other victims are suffering from objectively and subjectively-reported damage to various body systems, particularly, but not exclusively, the brain. Whether the origin is neuro-weapons or not, diplomats, spouses, children and other innocents are casualties of what appears to be clandestine warfare.
It is unsurprising that the USG and Intelligence Community Agencies are acting like the NFL when it comes to science about brain injuries: “We just don’t know enough to say conclusively whether football causes CTE.” We heard it about Burn Pit Victims, and Agent Orange, and contaminated water, even radioactivity back in the ‘50s. “We just don’t know enough, so we can’t go forward without more research.”
Well, everyone remembers VA Secretary McDonough’s interview with Jon Stewart on the cusp of dramatic change in how Burn Pit victims finally got recognized. There was a gargantuan fight among researchers about “presumptives” and Veterans who are suffering and dying. Dozens of symptoms/conditions were in limbo as far as the “cause.” According to the Secretary, “The biggest hurdle is establishing that link. That scientific link.” He meant between the conditions Veterans were suffering and their service. It got humorous when he and Jon Stewart watched DoD Press Secretaries over the years stating categorically that certain toxins, many found in Burn Pit effluvium, caused cancer. Cancers that the Veterans were suffering. And these were Veterans who had lived near Burn Pits for months and months.
Still the Secretary resisted, awaiting better science and, presumably, confirmation that the Veterans were telling the truth about their service.
A year after that interview, some thirty years after Burn Pit controversies arose, someone in the White House, along with Congress, cut the Gordian knot about waiting for more scientific validation. Congress passed the PACT Act, providing “the care and benefits Veterans deserve” for their service. And be clear: science and researchers are STILL not satisfied they know enough about the relationships of Burn Pits and over 24 presumptive conditions.
The meaning of this short history, and the links to Havana Syndrome/AHIs is direct: victims who need care and benefits for their wounding in service of their country need the best care on the planet. Cost should not be the limiting factor. Nor should the victims have to endure more whack-a-mole diagnostics and procedures and interviews and disrespect and shoulder-shrugging by caregivers about “We just don’t know what to do.” While it may be true that they don’t know what more can be done, we do.
The Peanut Allergy Epidemic continues to cost lives because of institutional resistance. Burn Pit victims are dying because of injuries suffered on duty. AHI victims fight daily just to get properly diagnosed. Those victims are still fighting to get insured access to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for numerous of their maladies. Again, science doesn’t know enough, but worldwide researchers and clinical practitioners have answers, backed up by science demonstrating safety and efficacy.
AHI victims are suffering from conditions that are already being helped by HBOT. Science can catch up quicker if researchers just read the current, peer-reviewed science and ask the right questions. And if policymakers do the right thing. There is NOTHING standing between treating with HBOT and doing science at the same time.
The victims need help now. TreatNOW.
The TreatNOW Mission is ending service member suicides. Along the way, we have learned that we can end suicidal ideation, help end symptoms of PTSD, get patients off most of their drugs, and heal brain wounds to end the effects of BLAST injury, mild TBI Persistent Post Concussive Syndrome, and polytrauma from AHI and Burn Pits. Diabetic Foot Ulcers have become a major emphasis. www.treatnow.org
Heal Brains. Stop Suicides. Restore Lives. TreatNOW
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