Now, a new global partnership between BlueGreen Water Technologies and Winrock International seeks to confront this escalating crisis head-on.

Announced in June 2025, the collaboration combines the BlueGreen groundbreaking water treatment technologies with Winrock strengths in community engagement and watershed expertise. The two organizations will pilot HAB mitigation projects in vulnerable water bodies worldwide, blending cutting-edge science with boots-on-the-ground collaboration.

Harmful algal blooms (HABs)are more than an environmental nuisance. When algae proliferate unchecked, they often release cyanotoxins, compounds linked to liver damage, neurological disease, and cancer. The danger is especially acute in communities with limited access to clean water infrastructure.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, exposure to HABs has been associated with severe illness in humans and animals alike, and outbreaks have increased significantly in frequency and intensity over the last two decades.

“These blooms undermine the fundamental right to clean, safe water,” says Eyal Harel, CEO and co-founder of BlueGreen Water Technologies. “They endanger health, food supplies, biodiversity, and climate stability.”

Based in Houston with global reach, BlueGreen Water Technologies has emerged as a global leader in treating HABs. Its signature product, Lake Guard®, utilizes controlled-release hydrogen peroxide granules to target toxic algae directly, restoring ecological balance without harming aquatic life.

What sets the technology apart is its speed and scalability. Many affected water bodies rebound in just days after application. Moreover, by collapsing algal blooms rather than rupturing cells, Lake Guard helps prevent toxin release and accelerates the natural sinking of biomass, contributing to measurable carbon sequestration. In Utah’s Mantua Reservoir, BlueGreen intervention captured nearly 13,000 metric tons of CO₂-equivalent, verified by third-party environmental assessors.

While its carbon market potential has attracted investor interest, the BlueGreen mission remains rooted in planetary and public health.

Winrock International, a global nonprofit, brings decades of experience in environmental sustainability, agricultural development, and clean water access. The organization has a reputation for working alongside local communities and government agencies to implement nature-based solutions that balance ecological and social needs.

Aaron Sundsmo, Winrock Associate VP of Agriculture and Water, emphasizes that addressing HABs isn’t just about treating symptoms—it requires upstream solutions. “Community engagement, stakeholder trust, and long-term strategies to reduce nutrient pollution are essential. That’s where our strengths align with BlueGreen’s vision.”

By partnering with Winrock, BlueGreen gains an experienced ally in building locally responsive frameworks. Together, the two will integrate chemical treatment with watershed restoration, sustainable agriculture, and environmental education.

The partnership will launch its first pilots in high-risk regions identified through water quality data, community needs, and ecological urgency. These initiatives will pair BlueGreen’s precision treatments with Winrock-led efforts in stakeholder coordination, regulatory navigation, and long-term land use planning.

The collaboration also aims to generate actionable environmental data to inform policy and attract sustainable investment. With HABs projected to intensify globally, scalable, science-backed, and socially grounded models like this will be vital.

BlueGreen is also in active trials with marine research partners, including Florida’s Mote Marine Laboratory, to adapt its technology to fight ocean-based HABs like red tide, which devastate marine biodiversity and coastal economies.

This partnership reflects a growing recognition that health and environmental outcomes are interlinked. Climate change, industrial agriculture, and pollution are not isolated crises—they converge in ways that challenge traditional silos of action.

“Solving water contamination issues requires more than a technological fix,” says Harel. “It demands a unified approach—combining innovation, policy, and people.”

In a world where over 2 billion people already lack safely managed drinking water, solutions that restore water health while building resilience and equity are more than innovations—they are imperatives.

The BlueGreen-Winrock alliance represents a forward-looking strategy for a world in ecological flux. It’s a model that others in the global health, sustainability, and climate tech sectors would do well to follow: technology married to trust, environmental impact driven by community inclusion.

Water is life. Safeguarding it—from HABs or any threat—must be a shared priority. This new partnership is a promising start.

The post Turning the Tide: BlueGreen and Winrock Team Up to Fight Global Water Crisis appeared first on Medika Life.

First, the guidance itself removes a specific reference to COVID-19 and groups it together with other respiratory viruses, such as influenza and RSV. This, in and of itself, is a significant change. And the new guidance says that if you do not have a fever for 24 hours and are feeling better, you do not have to isolate for five days and can continue normal activities.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a big deal. In many settings, especially in healthcare settings, if one or more staff members have to isolate at home for five days if they test positive for Covid, this can cause significant staffing difficulties. Now, the CDC finally recognizes that common sense needs to prevail.

That common sense includes the fact that, if you are sick, you need to stay home. This is true whether it is the flu, Covid, RSV, or any other illness. Once you’re feeling better, then you can resume normal activities.

Now, it is true that Covid can spread to other people even if the carrier does not have any symptoms. And so, again, common sense needs to prevail: if you are around people who are at high risk for severe illness with Covid, you should wear a mask around them. And, when you are sick, you should stay away from them completely. This is proper “virus etiquette” that more of us need to develop. It is the same as coughing or sneezing into one’s elbow.

The reason I am so excited about this change is because, today, the COVID-19 virus is a completely different pathogen. In the very beginning, COVID-19 caused severe illness in a great number of people. In the United States, it killed over 1 million people. That is a lot. I myself came down with COVID-19 in November 2020, and I have never had a viral illness like that one. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Now, however, for many people, COVID-19 is simply a bad cold.

It has been several months, if not years, that I have seen a life-threatening case of Covid ARDS in my ICU. Recently, I had a patient who tested positive for Covid and had severe lung infiltrates. It turns out that those were due to severe heart failure and not Covid. In fact, many of the patients we see in the hospital with Covid have other conditions that brought them in, and the Covid was simply a bystander.

That said, this does not mean that Covid cannot cause severe illness at all. The elderly, the frail and weak, and those with compromised immune systems are still at high risk for life-threatening illness, even with the current variant of Covid. They, of course, need to remain vigilant and careful. And those of us who are not at high-risk need to be cognizant of this and, again, have proper virus etiquette.

All of this having been said, this is a great change. I disagree with the those who say that this new guidance will make people dismiss Covid as a significant disease. People have already moved beyond Covid, and this is because the COVID-19 of 2024 is substantially different than the COVID-19 of 2020. This is reality, and I am very happy that the CDC has finally acknowledged this reality.

Listen to the podcast episode about this article.

The post It’s About Time: CDC Changes COVID Isolation Guidelines appeared first on Medika Life.

The most troubling news about the spread of COVID-19 comes from a recent CDC conference where 35 attendees came down with the virus. These people would appear to be part of a group that is eminently aware of the risks and the precautions that must be taken to avoid infection. But, they didn’t take precautions? Were they as worn out as the rest of us and wanted to be free to go to a “safe” conference?

Since 2018, the COVID-19 epidemic has affected people worldwide, and there have been hints recently that its spread might or might not be ending. As more people become immunized, disease rates decline, and restrictions are loosened, there is greater optimism than ever that this pandemic will end. But, some CDC members have run into heated arguments that have caused them to understand an alarming truth: It might never end.

Members of the CDC are becoming increasingly worried about the possibility that reduced vaccination rates in some areas would undercut the progress made in the fight against the flu and make it more difficult than originally anticipated to stop its spread.

The number of COVID-19 cases in India, brought on by the virus’s new variant strain, has increased alarmingly quickly, raising concerns throughout Southeast Asia and India, according to CDC experts and global health officials.

The Economic Times of May 1, 2023, indicated: “India on Monday reported 4,282 coronavirus infections, while the number of active cases dropped by over 1,750 to stand at 47,246, according to the latest Health Ministry data. The death toll has increased to 5,31,547 with 14 more fatalities, which includes six reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 a.m. showed.”

In the face of the news coming out of India and, possibly being withheld in other countries, how can we say the pandemic is over and we no longer need to take precautions? The CDC has insisted that people who have received the flu shot are allowed to engage in a variety of activities without having to abide by specific rules, such as mask-wearing and physical distancing requirements. But people contract the virus despite immunization.

Although there are fewer cases and more people getting vaccinated, the difficulties CDC staff and public health professionals confront demonstrate that the H1N1 epidemic has not yet been defeated. How will the recent CDC ruling that one vaccine shot by a person coming into the US will be viewed as “fully vaccinated” now affect our citizens?

“Because some traveler vaccine records might not specify whether recent Moderna or Pfizer doses received were bivalent, CDC will consider anybody with record of a single dose of Moderna or Pfizer vaccine issued on or after August 16, 2022, to meet the requirements,” is the agency’s response.

Recent occurrences among CDC members demonstrate that the influenza pandemic is still running strong despite broad vaccination campaigns against the Delta subtype. More Delta cases must be immediately treated in order to combat the pandemic flu outbreak, as cases and hospitalizations may surge across the country.

Together, we can face this catastrophe head-on, but experts are showing concern that another pandemic may be on the horizon this coming fall and questioning whether or not current vaccines will be sufficiently robust to quell it and save lives. This doesn’t bode well for our continued health-related stress, and that may contribute to infection rates as well since we know stress has a tendency to lower our natural immunity anyway.

The post CDC Members Prove to Themselves the Pandemic Isn’t Over appeared first on Medika Life.

[This story also ran on The Daily Yonder.]

That effort pleased researchers and advocates for improving rural health because the dozen or so examinations of rural health data provided important details about the 46 million Americans who live away from the nation’s population centers. It began to fill a gap in the information used by those who study and address the issues that affect people in rural communities.

But those reports, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report rural health series, began and ended in 2017. And though the CDC has addressed rural health in other weekly reports and data briefs, the agency hasn’t examined it in such depth since.

That’s one reason rural health advocates successfully pushed for the CDC to extend its rural health focus by creating an Office of Rural Health at the agency. The office is operational as of March 2023, and advocates hope the agency will commit to rural health research and provide analyses that lead to good public health policies for rural communities.

“What we’re seeing is rural continually getting left behind,” said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, which urged Congress to fund the office. “They’re communities at risk, communities that may not be employing public health safety measures, and we are flying blind,” he said.

“What’s needed is an ongoing look at rural communities, their populations, to better direct both state and federal efforts to address health disparities,” he said.

The omnibus appropriations bill signed by President Joe Biden in December 2022 gave the CDC $5 million for the 2023 fiscal year to create the Office of Rural Health inside the agency, which has a $9.3 billion budget this year. Congress directed the CDC to sharpen its focus on public health in rural areas with the new office, after covid-19 had an outsize impact on rural America.

Though the CDC is a data-driven public health agency, it’s unlikely the new office will solve preexisting rural data challenges. But CDC officials have said in-depth rural health initiatives that require collaborations across the CDC — like the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report rural health series — could become more common practice at the agency.

“Instead of comparing rural and non-rural, it was looking within rural,” said Diane Hall, acting director of the office, about the 2017 reports. “That MMWR sort of laid out some things that we can be thinking about doing more of so that within rural variation, [there’s] better understanding of how race and ethnicity play out in rural communities.”

In addition to ethnic disparities, the series examined illicit drug use, causes of death, and suicide trends, among other things. Those topics are already part of what the CDC tracks, but typically the agency compares rural data for those topics with urban data rather than creating a stand-alone analysis.

Hall said having an Office of Rural Health will also help the CDC continue collaborating with the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, part of the Health Resources and Services Administration. That office has existed since 1987 and has been the primary federal office dedicated to rural health care. But its focus is on increasing access to health care rather than monitoring public health.

At the CDC’s Office of Rural Health, “we’re more likely to be focusing on prevention,” Hall said.

What the office is unlikely to do, she said, is create new surveys and collect data that the CDC does not already track. It would be a “pretty costly” undertaking, she said. “I think what would be more impactful is to work with the people that are already doing that and help them better understand that rural context.”

Rural data analysis poses challenges because of the smaller size of rural population centers compared with the larger populations of urban areas. For instance, small communities might not have adequate response rates to surveys, which can limit the conclusions researchers can make about the data.

Michael Meit, co-director of the Center for Rural Health Research at East Tennessee State University, said the 2017 series helped to mitigate the “small numbers” challenge, wherein samples aren’t large enough to be properly analyzed because rural areas have smaller populations.

Each of the series’ reports outlined data limitations such as small numbers and their effect on the analysis, which shows the CDC was “already pushing forward and trying to bring voice to these issues,” Meit said. “I think that by itself is huge.”

Hall, the acting director, said there isn’t a simple solution to challenges like small sample sizes but that the “CDC’s Office of Rural Health can work to highlight creative solutions being developed, such as our PLACES project.” PLACES, or Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates, is a collaboration among the CDC, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and CDC Foundation that releases data for smaller cities and rural areas. (KFF Health News receives funding support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.)

Another challenge with rural health data is that small numbers can make it possible to identify who in a particular community is included in data. But the CDC has restrictions in place to prevent that from happening.

Sometimes, though, the agency does allow researchers to access files containing details like “race or ethnicity for small and highly visible groups” and “extreme values of income and age.”

Keith Mueller, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute, hopes the Office of Rural Health will make it easier for researchers to access that more detailed data.

“There would be somebody at the agency who can get at the data, who can help us answer the research question,” he said. “Collaborative work between people in the field and people in the agency who have the direct access to the data is far more readily available or likely to happen with this new office.”

Since the office is based in the CDC’s new Public Health Infrastructure Center, which launched in February, Hall said it’s well positioned to partner with researchers. The center manages the agency’s partnership grants, which are awarded to organizations that plan to improve public health services.

Hall said the office’s most immediate priorities, though, are to grow the staff beyond its current three members and to develop the CDC’s strategic plan for rural health.

The post The CDC Lacks a Rural Focus. Researchers Hope a Newly Funded Office Will Help appeared first on Medika Life.

This article contains claims that many will consider incendiary and anti-science. It therefore requires context and if you indulge me for a minute or two, I’d like, at length, to provide background before we address the large mammal. Words have power and we use them to record our history, describe the world around us, create narratives and chart the future. We use words to communicate our deepest thoughts, describe our fears and share our joys. And then, in some instances we use words to lie, both to others and ourselves.

I understand fully the responsibility that comes with the gift of being able to convey complex ideas to others, more importantly however, I also grasp the moral obligation attached to the gift. It should only ever be used for truth, or in the pursuit thereof. Science isn’t that different. It relies on words to describe complex concepts, often utilizing its own specific language, one that for most laypeople, places much of what is discussed beyond reach.

I am, for the record, a disciple of science. I believe. I always have. The logical purity of numbers and the wonders of the natural world are intertwined in an almost mystical fashion and our salvation, as a species will undoubtedly depend on science. Much like the Spiderman character however, the ability to wield an understanding and control over the natural world grants the scientist almost unlimited power. Power that, you guessed it, requires responsibility. Responsibility, morals and a strong sense of ethics.

That it what this article is about. It is not about science per se, but rather about the consequences we now face from the abuse and corruption of the discipline, morphing it into a tool whose primary focus is profit and control, rather than the betterment of our species. That, unfortunately, makes the brand of science currently being practiced, a danger to you and I. A fact the pandemic has highlighted with stunning clarity.

mRNA is the Pandora’s box of science, one of many advancing technology has uncovered. Make no mistake, mRNA holds huge promise for medicine, potentially even rivalling the discovery of penicillin. You can read an article I wrote on that exact topic in 2021, exploring the promise the technology holds.

So no, I am clearly not anti-science, at least not when the science being practiced is honest, ethical and cautious science, science that is aware of the potential impact of its actions on society and our wellbeing. That is not the science we have endured for the last three years, and we need to speak up. We have been systematically and intentionally lied to, misled and chemically abused for the last two years of the pandemic, potentially even right from the outset. Misled with words, scientific phrases couched in ambiguity and force-fed fear by the mass media, at the behest of politicians and scientists.

Now, when the dust settles, we need to face uncomfortable truths and a world that has changed, in ways we have yet to fully grasp. So, to the article, and if you should find yourself at odds with it, please, at least consider the questions it raises.

The Viral Elephant

If, and the “if” is looking more and more likely, the entire human race was just exposed to the first genetically engineered virus, we need to be urgently addressing the elephant in the room. The effects of the SARS-COV2 virus on our physiology are widespread and complex and it is critical more time is spent reverse engineering exactly how the virus was altered to increase its transmissibility.

I came across an incredibly interesting article while writing this piece from one of Medika’s contributors, William Haseltine, that describes in detail one of the unique tools this novel virus utilizes to evade and suppress our immune system. The article may prove heavy going for some, but it is an excellent read and provides insight on just how well adapted the virus is at exploiting our defenses.

Far more than being a one trick pony, SARS-COV2 is the Swiss army knife of viruses and we, unfortunately, are the can of baked beans.

You may notice how I refer to the above tool as unique. Its a term used all the time when discussing this virus. It is unique and the more we discover about it, the more likely it becomes that it was intentionally weaponized (for whatever purpose) to exploit our physiology. Simply put, the virus that has killed millions across the globe was likely released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is a product of science, American science, it is worth adding, practiced at a safe distance, on foreign soil and funded by American taxpayers.

For the first time in the history of humanity, over the course of the next two generations, this genetically manipulated virus will have infected the entire global population. For those who escaped the virus itself, there is no escaping the engineered bits (or spike protein) that have been artificially stimulated in your system by the mRNA vaccines. So the extent of the damage caused by the SARS-COV2 virus and its ability to access our entire physiology is not surprising, given it was designed for exactly that purpose.

We now face a new kind of threat, unknown medical risk by intentional design, a threat for which we are physiologically unprepared. This new world is filled with unknowns. Future mutations, revisited on us by livestock as we infect a host of animals that live in close proximity to us, or a reversion to the original SARS strain, far more deadly than SARS-COV2. How the virus and the vaccines impact our immune system’s response to future viral attacks is also up in the air. These are the issue’s we should be addressing now, with a sense of immediacy.

It is not melodramatic to suggest our species survival may depend on it, and if you think this is being melodramatic, then you still haven’t grasped the gravity of what has just unfolded.

The first step in this process requires accountability from the players involved, most notably EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, Anthony Fauci, Kristian G. Andersen, Dr. Ralph S. Baric, Dr. Shi Zhengli, et al. must be made to cooperate with a view to establishing the exact nature of their Gain of Function research on coronaviruses. Exactly what did they cook up in the lab in Wuhan and what else resides there on ice, patiently waiting for the next breach in safety protocols.?

It is also worth pausing a moment to consider the irony of the last three years, of looking to those who created the SARS-COV2 virus for our salvation.

The pandemic is rapidly transitioning from a global viral infection to chronic, long-term complications, with a range of symptoms so broad, doctors are at a loss as to how to define and treat them. Covid vaccines may play a significant, but as yet, unquantified role in many of these chronic and often fatal conditions, further muddying the waters. To truly understand which actor, the vaccine or the virus, both manufactured, may be to blame for the afflictions faced by millions, we need reliable, unbiased research and securing that is proving increasingly difficult.

Sifting Quicksand

Every corner of science and the politics that governs it has skin in the Covid game. The pharma industry, perhaps best positioned to carry out large-scale clinical research, can no longer be trusted. Any data released by pharma relating to anything pandemic related – especially in the absence of critical, independent third party review, cannot and must not be taken at face value.

The original Covid mRNA vaccine trials are evidence of this. The trials (170 people, in case you were not aware) were subjected to the most appalling “management” of candidates and data to validate the vaccine’s safety. Rapid development of a vaccine or treatment was of the essence to alleviate a collapsing medical infrastructure that was buckling under the pressure of the pandemic. Moderna took 28 days to solve the problem. 28 days. I’d say it again, but you can draw your own conclusions.

After nearly two decades, we hadn’t managed to develop a vaccine for the original SARS virus and yet, 28 days later, we had a working SARS-COV2 vaccine ready for clinical trials. The absurdity of this and the euphoric acceptance of this break with scientific reality go a long way to illustrating the desperation felt by many in the early days of the pandemic. Logic would rather suggest the virus was familiar to both Moderna and Pfizer prior to 2019.

Government agencies within the U.S. have been deeply complicit, providing funding via the NIH and the NIAID for developing and effectively weaponizing coronaviruses, ostensibly for the purposes of “further research.” Their ability to provide unbiased opinion on what poses a danger to the public they serve has been compromised. It is essential, moving forward, that both the FDA and CDC are overhauled, effectively preventing their pursuit of policies that place the public directly in harms way. Take their latest unanimous advice on vaccinating children as young as six months with mRNA vaccines.

Possibly the greatest indictment of the CDC is their mismanagement of VAERS. The CDC took 15 months before it finally evaluated data from the VAERS system in June of 2022. VAERS is a dedicated tool for collecting reports on vaccine side effects. So why wait 15 months? No sense in checking data for safety signals to simply verify what you already know, is there? Once you’ve checked that data, you can also no longer ignore it.

Every academic medical institution capable of performing the required research we so desperately need is at the same time beholden to outside funding. Research grants and future employment are dependent on not rocking the boat. To produce data that conflicts with, compromises or exposes funding sources (for the most part, pharma) is the equivalent of professional suicide and banishment to the land of the unfunded.

That leaves us with the politicians, whose agendas are rarely fueled by the best interests of the public. Although elected by us, they are all cling to the purse strings that enable them to reach their lofty heights. We will probably never know who orchestrated the official pandemic narrative, but it was the politicians who enforced it. In 2023, despite irrefutable evidence that disputes this narrative, most still repeat it ad nauseam.

To understand just how interwoven this has all become, take Peter Daszak, appointed by the WHO to head up a team to investigate the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan, effectively policing his own research. In record time he appeared on camera, stating that his investigation had turned up no evidence of a breach in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Lie upon lie, layer upon layer of deceit and deception. Little wonder then that trust is science is at an all time low.

Given the above, where do we then turn for reliable, agenda free research that is motivated only by the pursuit of the truth? We need to overcome this seemingly insurmountable obstacle before we can even consider unpacking the plethora of virus related questions that require answers. Some would suggest, the World Health Organization is best placed to oversee an investigation, but they too, possibly more than any other health body, are riddled with conflicts of interest on every level.

One thing is glaringly apparent though. There is large and growing body of evidence supporting the fact Covid vaccines are harming some, in many instances, fatally, which begs the following question.

WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO USE THEM? Why have we extended vaccination to healthy children and why does the CDC support this and promote it? How, in good conscience and with the safety of the public in mind, can governments and regulatory bodies allow the current narrative to continue? The study I have linked to above, references post vaccine induced myocarditis. Myocarditis post the Pfizer-Moderna combo was 28 times more common than post-Covid in 16-24 year old males in this massive Nordic study.

Impunity and the Point of No Return

No one is coming to save us and any hands that reach out from the medical and scientific community must, in light of the last three years, be considered tainted by default, until proven otherwise. This is the sad reality of where we currently find ourselves. Everyone in a position to put an end to the current pandemic narrative is compromised. They have passed the point of no return and although many may be racked by feelings or remorse, there is no world in which anyone admits fault, in particular to the virus’s origin and the efficacy of the vaccines.

That wonderful phrase “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” is absolutely applicable. Everyone sold the narrative and no one institutes an investigation in which they are also likely to be held accountable. Add to this, a growing number of individuals, intimately involved in the pandemic, who act with absolute impunity and concern only for shareholder and personal profit – or glory – and we seem to find ourselves in a spot of bother.

Realistically, no one in a position of power or acting from within the industry is going to the sound the alarm. Our only hope of getting to the truth lies in picking at the edges of the tapestry until it frays and pulls apart. It is left to fringe reporters to harass individuals like Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, who was accosted recently in Davos by two reporters from Rebel News. He was peppered with questions about their vaccine, its efficacy and more. Understandably, he diplomatically kept silent .

An eminent British cardiologist, Dr. Aseem Malhotra has also taken a stance against the vaccines and their manufacturers after the death of his father from a vaccine related illness. He is among a rising number of influential voices now starting to speak out publicly to call for an end to the mRNA vaccination campaign.

It is by no means a simple task or one for the feint of heart. Censorship is still frequently applied to any information that questions the ongoing Covid narrative, and on many social media platforms, content and users are still frequently de-platformed and often professionally sanctioned. Many have turned to Twitter, which, in recent months, since it’s acquisition by Elon Musk, has stopped censoring information that conflicts with the official narrative on the pandemic.

I’ve shared many articles during the last three years, relying mostly on common sense to question the incredibly dubious public health decisions as they’ve unfolded on a very public platform. At this point in the pandemic, we are now confronted with a very new and real threat, in the face of which, who did what, where, when and why, become almost irrelevant.

Mankind 2.0

What legacy will SARS-COV2 leave in its wake and how does that impact us and future generations? What long term impacts will the continued boosting of a novel drug with an abysmal safety record have on our physiology? What has it done to us over the last three years?

The truth is, we really don’t know the answers, which, in some instances, will require time and separating the vaccine’s effects from those of the virus have now become a research nightmare, thanks to the billions already vaccinated. In 2021, a group of academics valiantly tried to sound warning bells, this incredibly detailed article highlighting the potential dangers of mRNA vaccines.

We are headed into troubled waters, from a public health perspective. We may yet be plagued for generations to come by the ill effects of both the virus and the vaccines, no matter their delivery methods. More so, there is swirl and mistrust in voices of influence.

Long Covid, vaccine Serious Adverse Events (SAE’s – to many to list here) and strokes and heart related damage, in many instances fatal, already blight the medical landscape. Worryingly, the younger members of society appear to be as prone, if not more so, to developing adverse reactions, perhaps because their immune responses to the vaccine are more pronounced.

Humanity may have undone humanity, only time will tell. Time is needed to sort-out fact from fiction – probability from certainty. The responsibility now rests with us (you and I) to ensure we attempt to repair the damage and prevent any further rushed science being put to trial in the public space.

What can you do, you ask? Research all sides of the conversation. Ask questions and demand answers from those you have placed into positions of accountability. The truth will out – over time. Make your own, informed decisions – balancing your personal care and risk/risk – the risk of the current virus variant alongside your health status.

I’d ask one more thing of you. Trust your instincts and try to approach public facing pandemic information with a critical mind. There is almost always an agenda, from both sides of the fence and a little digging will normally uncover it. It’s time to leave the safety of the flock. In case you hadn’t noticed they’ve appointed the wolf as shepherd.

As a parting thought, please don’t vilify science. It is as much a victim of the avarice and greed of humanity, as we are. Perhaps, while we attempt to save ourselves, we can, in the same moment, rescue science. We are going to need it.

Missed Part 5 of the Covid Files on The Origins of Covid? Catch up here.

[EDITORS NOTE: The author is pro public health, pro science and pro vaccination. In this situation, he raises important questions and concerns for readers around the Covid SARS2 virus and Covid treatment approaches. His goal is to get people thinking in the best interest of future health innovation.]

The post Covid’s Elephant in the Room. We Must Address it appeared first on Medika Life.

In contrast, the BQ.1 variant represented less than one percent of cases. To identify and track SARS-CoV-2 variants, the CDC uses genomic surveillance. This process includes the collection of SARS-CoV-2 specimens for sequencing and SARS-CoV-2 sequences generated by commercial or academic laboratories contracted by the CDC and state or local public health laboratories.

In an interview with CBS News, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and also the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, observes this:

“When you get variants like [BQ.1], you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time.”

COVID-19 BQ.1 implications

You are probably aware of the Omicron subvariant called BA.5, the most common infection type. Nearly seven in 10 infections are secondary to BA.5. Viruses mutate, so I am not surprised that we have BQ.1 and other variants emerging.

Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine Houston (USA) called BQ.1.1 on Twitter the “most likely candidate” to drive a new COVID-19 wave if that were to happen in the coming months.

Will the current treatments, including monoclonal antibodies, hold up with the new BQ.1 variant? Noting this concern, I want to share the good news:

Because the new variant is a descendant of Omicron, my upcoming booster shot may be my best first line of protection against this rising threat. I look forward to seeing if the booster works well to prevent serious illness. I don’t have high hopes that it will slow transmission much, though.

Thank you for joining me in this brief look at COVID-19 BQ.1. Stay safe.

The post BQ.1 — The New COVID-19 Variant Doctors Want You to Know About appeared first on Medika Life.

Among those with the most significant risk are older Americans with chronic conditions. From the earliest stages of the pandemic until now, COVID hospitalizations have been six times higher and deaths 12 times higher for people with underlying medical (i.e., non-communicable diseases – NCDs) conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, or chronic lung disease. Currently, 81% of COVID deaths occur in people over age 65. The number of deaths among people over age 65 is 97 times higher than that among people ages 18-29. It’s a dangerous situation that we can overcome if we prepare before the next pandemic wave.

COVID + Diabetes = Serious Risk

For example, consider the brutal truth about one of the deadliest comorbidities in COVID at-risk communities: diabetes.

• Diabetes disproportionately affects racial/ethnic minority populations. Compared with white adults, the risk of having a diabetes diagnosis is 77% higher among African Americans, 66% higher among Latinos/Hispanics, and 18% higher among Asian Americans
• Diabetes prevalence is approximately 17% higher in rural areas than in urban areas, with studies showing that rural adults were more likely to report a diagnosis of diabetes than urban counterparts
• Some 33% of adults aged 65 or older have pre- or Type 2 diabetes. This age group is more at risk of developing diabetes-related complications like low blood sugar, kidney failure, and heart disease than younger people.

The scale of this patient challenge is immense. Approximately 84 million adults — more than 1 in 3 Americans — have prediabetes. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 90% of people with prediabetes do not know they have it; neither do they know that if left unchecked, it may lead to Type 2 diabetes.

Though its symptoms are subtle, prediabetes is insidious, and as with elevated blood pressure and high cholesterol, it can quickly become deadly. Add another pandemic into the mix, and we know where our subsequent waves of hospitalizations and deaths will come from: seniors, people of color, and rural Americans. We are not prepared, but if we recognize the risk and mobilize health professionals now, we will save lives later.

Further complicating our ability to address this threat is our disregard for prediabetes. For many people, prediabetes means, “Whew! I don’t have diabetes.” But prediabetes requires critical intervention and requires patients to change their behavior. Public health leaders must organize payers, patient groups, and providers – especially pharmacists and long-term care pharmacists – and that must happen before the next pandemic hits. We must get smarter and faster and not wait until the coffins pile up.

Primary Care Has A Change of Address

While this pressing public health threat becomes more urgent, our front-line defense, primary care, undergoes retreat in some cases and fundamentally changes to a retail pharmacy setting in others. These changes may presage increased access to care for some. Conversely, it could allow older patients to fall through the cracks in the face of the growing threat of non-communicable illnesses such as diabetes.

Historically, primary care providers diagnosed, treated, and engaged these consumers. Can walk-in services alleviate people’s ongoing care burden and be ready for the next pandemic?  Corporate and clinical leaders of the mega-chains and community retail pharmacies retail must rally these sites to be front-line communicators regarding non-communicable illnesses, especially prediabetes. Pharmacies are no longer just locations where you can grab a jab – an immunization, vaccine, or booster. Pharmacists will need greater input and support as we go forward and face emerging pandemics.

The ability to walk into a CVS MinuteClinic, Walgreen Health Corner, or Walmart Health for primary care is a win for access to manage pressing health needs. But will ongoing, long-term preventive care — featuring a plan for wellness care instead of sick care — be addressed at these sites? People “shop around” for medical convenience and not necessarily for provider relationships, another reason retail clinics need to be part of the preventive care solution.

Today, fewer and fewer people have a long-term family physician who tracks their needs and feels responsible for their longevity. The single-practitioner office is now being absorbed into larger practice groups and private practices are vanishing. Without the diagnostic oversight a trusted healthcare provider offers, we are missing an essential link between urgent and specialty care,  prevention and illness,  and prediabetes and diabetes.

Weathering the Storm

It is a perfect storm. Poorer diet, higher sugar intake, and increasingly sedentary lifestyle lead to prediabetes, which isn’t straightforward to diagnose and is often not taken seriously by patients. And, as we have seen, the essential player in defense against the condition — the primary care physician — is beginning to step off the stage.

To meet the challenges posed by diabetes/prediabetes epidemic, the lack of primary care patient support, and the persistent threats posed by COVID and other pandemics which will emerge, we need to consider the following actions:

1. Easy-Access Diagnostics Technologies – Retail pharmacies must ally with point-of-care and home-testing companies such as Babson Diagnostics and ixlayer. Consumers at risk must be empowered to take greater responsibility for their well-being. Give people with NCDs easily accessible tools to be full partners in preventive care.

• Find a Digital Connection – Netflix pings us about movies and TV shows that might attract our interest. Political parties use texts and email to rally the faithful. It’s time health insurance companies and the CDC find creative ways to enter the game using AI and digital health to establish closer relationships with consumers, helping people with diabetes to become aware of and purchase products to address their healthy lifestyle needs. Keeping people alive and well is a mutual interest of insurers and the CDC.
• Deputize Pharmacists:Pharmacists were always able to do much more than give shots, and now primary care nurses and assistants have found a home in retail pharmacies.  CDC and physician associations need to recognize that seniors and people with diabetes increasingly see pharmacy as a go-to for questions, easily accessible solutions, and vaccinations.  The American Pharmacists Association is raising the bar on public health resources.

• Start Talking to People: There is “no one-size fits all” effective way to communicate about COVID-19. The 65+ community faces different risks than the 15-and-under crowd.  People with diabetes and heart disease face heightened risks from COVID.  People of color are often at particular risk for these illnesses, compounded by COVID. The CDC needs to address people’s specific needs and risks better. People are tired of hearing about COVID. They are less worn out from hearing about what matters to their particular interests.

CDC is the target of many critiques right now. More than 80 years ago, British Wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the New Statesman: “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”  For people in science, failure does not mean the end – it’s the rocket fuel of future success. The CDC will learn from the COVID chapter and return ready for the next viral confrontation.  Our lives depend on its success.

The post Taking On Prediabetes Could be America’s Best Defense Against COVID-19 appeared first on Medika Life.

There are many reasons for the failure to convince people to take sensible preventive measures. Still, a significant cause of COVID’s blow to the authorities’ credibility is that the time is over for the one-size-fits-all messages that characterized successful public health campaigns of the past. They have been notably ineffective at a time when anyone with an edgy opinion and a Twitter account is a tribal influencer. With just 240 characters, a naysayer can completely counter science when their audience unleashes a cascade of likes and retweets.

Stop Shadowboxing

The government, especially The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the scientific community can overcome the damage to their credibility by going small.  Focusing on specific targets and “micro-communicating,” officials and scientists can speak directly to those with the most to lose: their lives. These are the audiences with real skin in the game.

From the earliest stages of the pandemic until now, COVID hospitalizations have been six times higher and deaths 12 times higher for people with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, or chronic lung disease. Currently, 81% of COVID deaths occur in people over age 65. The number of deaths among people over age 65 is 97 times higher than that among people ages 18-29.

Broad messaging now flies over most people’s heads. It’s certainly doesn’t speak to patients who are BIPOC, seniors and rural Americans, patients who are struggling the most to access this nation’s health system and who are also the most at risk during viral fall-out. Their lives are on the line as we learn from communication missteps and prepare for the next pandemic.

For example, consider the brutal truth about one of the deadliest comorbidities in the COVID at-risk community: people with diabetes.

• Diabetes disproportionately affects racial/ethnic minority populations. Compared with white adults, the risk of having a diabetes diagnosis is 77% higher among African Americans, 66% higher among Latinos/Hispanics, and 18% higher among Asian Americans
• Diabetes prevalence is approximately 17% higher in rural areas than in urban areas, with studies showing that rural adults were more likely to report a diagnosis of diabetes than urban counterparts
• Some 33% of adults aged 65 or older have prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes. This age group is more at risk of developing diabetes-related complications like low blood sugar, kidney failure, and heart disease than younger people.

The CDC and other players must aggressively engage in conversations with these most vulnerable audiences. They must learn to target their messages and hone their digital marketing savvy to reach them and the patient coalitions that tap into other groups’ grassroots reach.

Part of the Problem is that Primary Care May Have Thrown in the Towel

The pressing public health threat of COVID took place just as our front-line medical defense force — primary care —was in retreat. Primary care is morphing before our eyes into a pharmacy convenience-store service plug-in. And while the ability to walk into a CVS MinuteClinic, Walgreen DR Walk-In, or Walmart Care Clinic for primary care is in many cases a win for access to care, it presents a challenge for communicators.

Today, fewer and fewer people have a long-term family physician who tracks their needs and feels responsible for their longevity. The single-practitioner office is now being absorbed into larger practice groups and private practices are vanishing. Without that relationship with a trusted healthcare provider, patients are missing out on the immediacy of personalized advice.

The CDC and other public health authorities must consider that a key communications ally has changed locations, and the forwarding address might be community-based retail pharmacies.

Communicators Need to Change their Game to Win in this Ring

A learned medical advisor — whether an in-person physician advocate or one powered by smart technology — who knows our name and what’s happening with us over time still matters. It is the best defense against diabetes and other chronic conditions and the threat posed by deadly viruses when coupled with those preexisting conditions. Even in the changing medical landscape still struggling to overcome COVID-19 and the unresolved challenges of racism that result in illness and death, there must always be a place for that relationship. Otherwise, the ticking time bomb of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions will morph into an overwhelming public health crisis when the next pandemic hits.

CDC must now think smarter and partner with major patient-centered not-for-profit groups such as the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and American Heart Association so that they can take on the primary conversation role with their communities. 

And they must forge even stronger ties with the retail community and long-term care senior pharmacy networks to fill the communications role once played by family physicians, a vital link in conveying the importance of information on public health imperatives, especially those related to combatting viral epidemics.

Down But Not Out – CDC Knows the Ropes

CDC must use the time we have now to train for the next round. Unfortunately, there will be another fight against a viral opponent soon enough, though we can’t predict when. But like any determined fighter would, our public health players must head train and spar with proven communication players to perfect how and to whom they communicate their scientific data and life-saving guidance. What’s at stake is a world title for our survival.

The post CDC Lost Round One – But the Public Health Match Continues appeared first on Medika Life.

As social media has grown in importance and become a go-to source for information, there have been persistent calls from lawmakers and regulators for owners and managers to be responsible for tagging the misinformation that has often been spread on their platforms and moderating it.  Does this ask exceed our abilities to monitor and engage and corral dangerous deniers?

Long before one of the world’s wealthiest people slapped down $44B to buy Twitter, the public was in the grip of a misinformation pandemic. Whether on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or any of several platforms, communication and public discourse have been partisan, ideologically informed and slanted.  During the pandemic, when this “Tower of Babel” was combined with inaccurate, non-authoritative and often conflicting pronouncements from those in authority, the public’s trust in elected officials, health authorities, drug companies and public institutions was broadly undermined.  By the time Elon Musk got to Twitter, in terms of trust, the horse had long fled the stable.

During the COVID-era, social media discourse has already enabled our nation to self-divide into tribes.  Whatever Musk’s intentions are, we are already in the midst of a perfect storm of “trust deregulation.”

TRUST TAKES YEARS TO EARN – IT’S LOST IN A MOMENT

Trust in institutions, it turns out, is short-lived and can be fragile.

Despite the great success of COVID vaccines, which are medical miracles, public health officials’ overstatement of their benefits contributed to reduced trust. Designed to protect and guard against viral transmission, vaccines were not all they were promised to be. Their protection turns out to be individual, not societal, and they guard against disease severity, like the flu shot, but not transmission.

As variants come onto the stage, we are encouraged to get another booster shot.  But the variant that now reigns supreme has no vaccine. It’s the “I don’t give a damn” adaptation. When the scientific story changed, it became hard to maintain confidence in the system.

Public health officials aren’t alone; there is a documented, dramatic trust decline in government and science, in addition to public health. Institutional trust diminishes as anxiety resulting from emotional (and social) isolation rises. Many blame social media for ratcheting that anxiety, as it’s often difficult to differentiate fact from fiction. But while Twitter is accountable for much chaos, it’s not responsible for the drop in consumer confidence in institutions.

Trust is personal, earned through consistent action over time. How institutions and companies — embodied by their CEOs, marketers, and communicators — engage transparently and honestly defines the quality of relationships and earns them trust.

While trust must be carefully earned, it can more easily be squandered. Public health institutions proved this.

The CDC needed to improve when it came to consumer mobilization. Masks work. Social distancing was effective. Vaccines and booster shots reduce disease severity. But are people continuing to wear masks, take precautions or get boosted? The Centers for Disease Control failed to establish itself as the go-to source for information and direction, and no longer enjoys the level of public trust it once did.

THE ERA OF VERIFY, THEN TRUST

And that takes us back to Twitter. While many point the finger at Twitter and other social platforms like Facebook as primary culprits in the mess we face, the causes of the current distrust go deeper. Poor communication and indecisive action from those in authority, a willingness to exploit crises for political and personal gain, coupled with news networks and media platforms that long ago moved from reporting facts to reflecting the tribal beliefs of their audiences’ ideological alignment contribute mightily to the loss of objective truth and the normalization of passing misinformation.

If quashing misinformation is to have any positive impact, consumers need to have a well-regarded, apolitical home base they can trust, which does not currently exist. How can Twitter alone be held accountable without this beacon of accuracy being seen as a go-to source?

Whether we advertise or not on this platform, there are right now 450 million monthly active users on Twitter!  Most do not register what Elon Musk says or represents.  If the billionaire throws his hands up and shuts off the lights, who wins the final round of this debate?

Many pundits sound Twitter’s death knell. Some are couching it as retribution for being a home for misinformation – or worse, hate.  But, if Twitter – with its global town square positive aspects still intact — collapses, does anyone win?

Without a trusted, objective source, it becomes critically important for consumers of information to adopt a more skeptical mindset to review information carefully to determine its value and truth.  And that means verifying the accuracy of information before sharing our trust.

MOVING FORWARD TO BUILD TRUST

Platforms like Twitter have a responsibility to their users, including protecting them from fiction that could lead to dangerous decisions regarding their health. Whether Elon Musk can be appealed to or not to reverse this decision to step back on quashing misinformation, regulators, corporate leaders and communicators must be reminded that creating and maintaining trust with the public is a micro-building community activity that happens house-by-house, person-to-person, and eye-to-eye.

We must recognize that Twitter is a microcosm reflecting people’s diversity, beliefs, and opinions. If Twitter fails, the plurality of opinion it has revealed over time doesn’t go away.  To build trust with that broad, diverse crowd of users, communicators need to make their cases with facts, convincingly, with authority and evidence, over and over.  It isn’t going to be simple to navigate these chaotic waters, but when it comes to combatting misinformation, we are all in the same boat.

The post Twitter’s Decision to Stand-down on COVID Misinformation Highlights a New Symptom — “Trust Deregulation” appeared first on Medika Life.

The Covid pandemic has been the first true global outbreak our modern society has endured. Our responses to contain it were neither swift, nor effective, perhaps reflecting a fundamental flaws in our preemptive planning and a lack of cohesion a united global health federation would have offered. Governments faltered, floundered and then did what anyone does when they see the ship sinking. They panicked.

What followed was a textbook example of how not to deal with a pandemic that cannot be contained. The public was cajoled, coerced, forced, frequently misled, and perhaps even lied to, often intentionally so. Current Covid policy suggests we have learned nothing in the past three years or have chosen to blithely ignore our missteps.

Many claim that it is easy to be critical of our pandemic strategy utilizing the perfect science of hindsight, that we were in uncharted waters and that “we didn’t know”.

These arguments are of course condescending, an easy out for the cold, harsh reality of how science and politics cohabited to produce the pandemic from hell. Many voices sounded caution in our response, many voices urged restraint, and more still, questioned the wisdom of advice issued by our bastions of health, the WHO, the CDC, the FDA and other global health infrastructures. These voices of dissent, without exception, were silenced in favor of an official global narrative.

You were either on board with this Covid policy or you were sidelined, silenced or discredited. An unprecedented global health dictatorship was born, impervious to logic, medical safety and long established ethical precedents for public health and patient safety. At the end of the day, pandemic policy, not science or common sense, dictated our miserable management of the pandemic.

Information, Facts and Fictions

Dealing with the the distribution of information on a global scale in an internet enabled world is an art form, a science on it’s own, that is in its infancy. Poorly understood and even more poorly applied, the act of sharing accurate, trustworthy and believable information on a global scale suffers from what some would suggest is an insurmountable obstacle. Humanity and its proclivity toward tribes.

Push information publicly to promote an agenda and you are assured of two things. Large swathes of the public will buy into your narrative. Large swathes of the public will not.

And so it was with Covid, and still is, with one exception. There is migration occurring in the tribes, an exodus from the Village of Blind Obedience to the Village of Skepticism, and it is growing daily. It is a migration that governments and healthcare willfully ignore and should this trend continue, it will, once and forever, sever any remaining trust the general public still holds for healthcare.

The migration is driven by one simple thing. Facts, the lack of, or their emergence. To underscore this point allow me to provide an example, one I recently wrote on, relating to advice provided globally on the risks posed by the Covid inoculations to nursing mothers. the following advice is offered by the CDC website. Emphasis added by author.

“CDC recommends COVID-19 vaccines for everyone ages 6 months and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future and getting boosters, if eligible.”

The fact that zero data existed (verified on the same page) to support the CDC opinion on the safety of nursing infants to the Covid inoculations didn’t stop the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) or the WHO from offering identical advice. This advice persists even now despite mounting evidence of harm to nursing infants. So to facts then, and willfully ignoring them in pursuit of a plan.

The Covid agenda ignored the most basic of human rights, the premise of self autonomy, that we are in charge of our own health and that we enjoy that very human luxury of choice. The public have been subjected to mandates, coerced, pressured, shamed and manipulated like sheep, herded with intent into a pen for the largest clinical trial in the history of humanity. A trial which remains ongoing, possibly fueled by the flawed logic of “in for a penny, in for a pound”.

I cannot speak to the specifics of the global agenda on Covid. I can freely speculate about profit, mismanagement, political gain, economics and even indulge in wild conspiracy theories, but it is a pursuit without point. What really matters now is where this gross mismanagement of information has led us and how, if at all, the situation can be remedied.

Even doctors use Dr. Google

For generations, doctors have been revered as people of science, these learned folk that would cure us of our myriad afflictions. Many patients would feel better simply from sitting in front of their doctor and describing their symptoms. A simple combination of trust and lack of public knowledge has served the industry admirably for centuries. Doctors shared that rarified air enjoyed by those we place on pedestals. For many, technology and the free flow of information have shattered this illusion. It was and is, in many ways, simply an illusion.

Doctors are fallible and the scope of knowledge required to discern a medical condition, given the breadth of our expanding understanding of human anatomy, is beyond the scope of an individual person, justifying the existence of specialized doctors. The odds of a correct diagnosis for your condition are staggeringly low and are dependent on the skill, empathy, level of education and interest (yes, interest) your doctor takes in your case. Sadly, your insurance status and financial standing also affect outcomes.

Even doctors resort to Google to access literature, not only to assist them forming a diagnosis, but for information on health policy and practice.

A sound approach, assuming the information you obtain from “trusted sources” reflects advice based on solid science and is ethically in the best interest of the practitioner/patient relationship. Needless to say, doctors require scientific and medical fact to safely treat their patients. In 2020 the internet was inundated by “medical information” relating to the SARS-COV2 virus and the associated disease we called Covid. Medical information and opinion (most of it of questionable origin) was the order of the day, rather than medical fact.

We were in the dark, facing an unknow enemy and much of what transpired in 2020 was trial and error, best guesses from a completely overwhelmed medical industry, horrendously equipped and fielding practitioners who were as terrified as their patients. Many medical staff resorted to the quickest pandemic updates they could find, turning to “trusted” outlets such as CNN and other mainstream media.

In the age of Internet Information Dissemination, we had just committed the cardinal sin, one that would single handedly destroy the credibility of treatments, of doctors, scientists and once revered healthcare institutions among large segments of our society.

We ignored fact in favor of assumption and then, to compound our error, we lied.

The art of Internet Information Dissemination (IID)

IID sounds like some IED (Improvised Explosive Device) but in many ways, it is far more deadly. It is a tool that if wielded incorrectly, irresponsibly and with impunity can result in disaster, and even death. We see the devastating impact of this so clearly in America’s fragmented political system, overwhelmed by those who abuse their digital privilege and responsibility.

To avoid having information appropriated and misinterpreted in our digital age, a simple, yet difficult to adhere to, mantra must be followed faithfully.

Tell the truth, share only verifiable fact and acknowledge when you simply “don’t know”.

Share information that doesn’t adhere to the above, that is disseminated for the purposes of furthering an agenda, that draws erroneous conclusions and manipulates fact, and you are faced with the current debacle healthcare grapples with. The erosion of trust, coupled with any loss of goodwill your predecessors may have built up.

As an analogy, it’s like Apple bringing out a new phone that does none of what it’s marketing suggests. The company would suffer irreparable damage to its reputation and destroy hard won trust with its customer base. This is the predicament healthcare now faces. Their phone isn’t holding up to the marketing they’ve published.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but it turns out their phone (the vaccine) isn’t actually even a phone (an inoculation). The Covid “vaccines” are not a multi-dose treatment regime for at risk patients. They form the backbone of the worlds largest and ongoing clinical trial, one that patients have in most instances been coopted into joining. You bought the phone based on a misleading pamphlet.

Unlike Apple however, Governments keep changing their sales ploy, seemingly blissfully unaware of the indelible footprint left by their previous pitches. The accepted and favored Covid narrative is unwinding in real time as facts emerge to conflict with “expert opinion” and questionable manipulation, interpretation and presentation of data to support the narrative.

Unfortunately for healthcare, this event is occurring in the public arena and everyone is able to participate in its demise. The naysayers are circling, waiting to claim their pound of flesh and the justification is self-evident. No one likes being told what to do, no one likes their freedom compromised and least of all, no one enjoys being forced to participate in clinical experimentation, no matter the scale.

How do we fix this?

Healthcare is one of the most lucrative industries we have created and therein lies the problem. It is infinitely complex in it’s subject matter, continuously evolves and it is subject to huge financial and political influences, most of which are self-serving and rarely align with the interests of public health or the patient. Healthcare also uses a multi-layered approach to risk management by spreading accountability where possible. The WHO will assign their policies to SAGE documents, while SAGE will reference the CDC or FDA, who in turn will reference the WHO for the identical policies.

Medical-speak protects the industry and practitioners by erring on the side of caution and avoiding offering specific advice. Medical literature is overwhelmed with non-committal safe terms such as “may lead to”, “unlikely to”, “more likely” and my all time favorite, “when in doubt consult your doctor” Unfortunately, in times of crises, such as global pandemics, these factors all conspire to produce an industry that is incapable of producing clear, concise and honest medical advice to the planet’s denizens. There is a thoughtful piece on the subject from Medika’s editor regarding the CDC and their communication calamities that I recommend reading.

In short, the medical and healthcare professions are their own worst enemies when it comes to engaging the general public. Add the internet to the mix, and the results are calamitous, particularly when the industry attempts to promote an agenda by publishing questionable information.

After three years and billions spent on marketing, many members of the public still do not understand that the so called Covid “vaccines” do not offer any protection against infection from the SARS-COV2 virus. To have portrayed the treatments as inoculations rather than treatments would have been truthful, rather than trying to profit falsely from the established reputation of vaccines, now all but ruined.

Truth bears up under scrutiny, fictions do not, well intentioned or otherwise. Lie in the digital world and you will be found out.

Truth is the only way forward for the industry to regain trust and rebuild its relationship with the general public. Sadly, for this to occur, healthcare would need to free itself from the shackles imposed by political, pharmaceutical and other corporate interests seeking to benefit or enrich themselves at the expense of public health. Currently healthcare communication considers manipulation and marketing as being mutually inclusive. Neither are conducive to re-establishing trust. Manipulation reeks of an agenda and is easily exposed, while marketing suggests you are trying to sell something.

Healthcare exists to serve the patient and its sole communicative duty is to inform, factually, truthfully and accurately. That is all.

The post Restoring Credibility. Can We Ever Trust Healthcare Again? appeared first on Medika Life.