Ask a room full of people any of the above and a lot of hands would go up. They would, of course, all be wrong. The reasons are relatively simple and straightforward, the logic undeniable and yet millions of Americans still pursue these drugs, in some instances forfeiting their lives in the process.

To understand why the evidence for the success of these drugs as a treatment for Covid isn’t compelling, we need to establish a few facts first. For instance, take the following question. Just how much risk is there of Covid killing you? It seems like a simple question to answer, but in truth, it is anything but.

Case Fatality Rates, CMR, and IFR

The probability that someone dies from a disease doesn’t just depend on the disease itself, but also on the treatment they receive, and on the patient’s own ability to recover from it. This makes interpreting data complex and very nuanced.

Catching SARS-CoV2 and developing Covid isn’t a death sentence, not for most of the people who contract it. Global figures based on PCR testing reflect over 222 million cases to date. Of these cases, 4.5 million have proved fatal. The press will tell you this works out roughly at a risk ratio of around 2%, commonly referred to as the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), where the number of deaths is divided by the number of cases. The press is wrong.

Not to be confused with the Crude Mortality Rate (CMR), CFR is far from perfect in determining your personal risk from Covid. There are a few problems using CFR, the most obvious being the reported number of infected in a population. Cases could underreport infections as not everyone is tested and some patients present as asymptomatic (no symptoms).

CFR can decrease or increase over time, as responses change; and that it can vary by location and by the characteristics of the infected population, such as age, or sex. For instance, older populations would expect to see a higher CFR from COVID-19 than younger ones. For similar reasons, the Crude Mortality Rate or CMR is also not a reliable indicator.

So if neither the CFR nor CMR are a good indicator for risk, where do we turn. The scientific community (not the press and media) uses another measure called the Infection Mortality Rate, or IMR. This is the number of deaths from a disease divided by the total number of cases. If 10 people die of the disease, and 500 actually have it, then the IFR is [10 / 500], or 2%.

Confused?

To work out the IFR, we need two numbers: the total number of cases and the total number of deaths, but some of you may already have figured out that we don’t know the true number of cases and probably never will. We cannot test everyone and many are, as discussed earlier, asymptomatic, so researchers will use a ‘best guess’ in their calculation. Far from ideal, but we have no other method.

Despite what some press and media reports imply, the CFR is not the same as, or, even similar to the IFR. If the CFR is 2% then in reality the IFR for Covid will be far lower. For the purposes of this piece, let’s assume it to be 1%. For every 100 confirmed Covid cases, 1 patient will die.

And that is where the rub lies for treatments of the infection, particularly treatments that rely on early-stage administration. Drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and treatments like monoclonal antibody infusions. It is only possible to tell if these drugs work in a clinical setting.

Pepsi® is the miracle cure

If all the 100 infected patients were to self-administer Pepsi® at home, 99 would statistically survive and 1 patient would die. People would sing the praises of Pepsi® and stores would be looted as a naive population stockpiled Pepsi®, just in case. The unfortunate patient who died would have had to stop drinking Pepsi®. Being intubated has its drawbacks.

The press and general public would of course be able to extrapolate these data and expand them to reach the following conclusions. Pepsi® is effective against Covid, offering you up to 99% protection. It isn’t an effective treatment in the late stages of the disease, so make sure you order your Pepsi® early from Americas’ Frontline Doctors (AFLDS). Sound familiar?

Obviously the above is an analogy, please don’t rush out and buy Pepsi® in the mistaken belief it will help your body combat Covid. The point is that exactly the same principle applies to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. If 99 out of 100 people were going to survive no matter what, then arguably you could ascribe their recovery to literally anything, including Pepsi®, Coke, Dr. Pepper’s, or tap water.

There are however mouth-watering sums of money to be made out of a gullible public that has in large part lost confidence in the system. A public that is in many ways its own worst enemy, spreading news of miracle cures online and belittling science and themselves in the process.

If you are one of the true believers, I hope you’re still reading and I’d recommend reading the above again. Let it really sink in.

Clearly, this problem isn’t merely limited to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. It affects all early-stage treatments and there are carefully controlled situations where the real efficacy of the treatments can be assessed and monitored, but these are also fraught with pitfalls.

Is there any way of proving that drugs or treatments do help?

Yes and no. Speak to almost any frontline doctor that’s been embedded in the Covid wards since the start of the pandemic and they’ll tell you the following. HCQ and ivermectin make no difference to the mortality rate of patients in their wards.

This, you can correctly argue, could simply be because the patient is too far gone by the time they are admitted for the drugs to have any effect. True, but in that case, please refer to the preceding argument.

Ideally, patients would need to be identified in the early stages of infection, treated with the drugs, and then have the viral load in their systems monitored. This method assumes that we have established viral loads across all patient populations and variants. We cannot identify deviations from the disease’s natural progression without these control data.

Sadly, a trial of this nature would be unable to correctly identify if the treatments actually ‘cure’ the patient or if they simply speed up the patient’s natural ability to recover. Something, let’s remind ourselves, 99 out of 100 were going to do in any case. Again, this problem isn’t mutually exclusive to ivermectin and HCQ, it affects the assessment of all Covid treatments.

To be able to confirm without a doubt that a treatment is effective against the onset of death from Covid, the treatment would need to prove effective in reducing mortality in admitted patients. That is the gold standard and doctors will tell you, it doesn’t apply to either ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.

Sorry.

Vaccines however do work. That 1% can be reduced to 0.05% if you simply get vaccinated. That’s a proven fact.

The post The Simple Truth Ivermectin and HCQ Supporters Fail to Acknowledge appeared first on Medika Life.

In particular, organizations like America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), known for spreading their unscientific rhetoric attacking both treatments for Covid and questioning the efficacy of Covid vaccines. Their unproven ‘Covid treatments’, focusing on Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and other drugs have undoubtedly led to people dying from Covid.

That’s all about to change as long overdue legislation is being rolled out across the medical industry. Legislation that is focused on holding medical professionals accountable for their views. It’s never been okay to offer advice that jeopardizes the lives of patients you’ve taken an oath to protect.

New legislation now means that medical boards can respond in a meaningful way to complaints, even stripping these questionable practitioners of their licenses to practice. It’s long overdue and the industry as a whole will welcome the steps taken to protect the public against misinformation.

The process however relies on the public being made aware of their rights and their recourse to filing complaints against practitioners who do not honor medicine’s primary directive.

primum non nocere — first do no harm

Equally important to this process is making the public aware of scientific evidence-based medical opinion that is both trustworthy and easily accessed. Part of this process involves educating patients against potential risks and AFLDS poses a potentially life-threatening risk to the patients it claims to help.

To be clear, there are no approved “treatments’ for Covid aside from the vaccines which massively reduce the risk of developing life-threatening Covid. To place your trust in any ‘treatment regimes’ is to place your life at risk.

Who is AFLDS?

Essentially set up by a group of doctors, including Dr. Stella Immanuelle and Simone Gold, who can only be described as quacks, the group rose to prominence in mid-2020, feeding off the fear of the Covid pandemic to “sell” their Covid treatments to trusting and unsuspecting members of the public.

Their founder, Dr. Simone Gold, who is currently under investigation for her role in the January 6 insurrection in the Capitol, where she was captured on film, is outspoken and controversial. She frequents popular conspiracy channels and has been instrumental in spreading false and misleading information about Covid vaccines.

To understand why this group of medical professionals would want to create distrust in the public mind, you need to understand how they profit from the disinformation they spread. AFLDS is nothing more than a glorified multi-channel direct selling scheme. The fact that their patients’ lives may be forfeit has not given them pause.

Patients are offered an online consultation for $90 and can then request prescriptions, for amongst others, Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and whatever other concoction of vitamins and drugs are available. These prescriptions are then filled by online pharmacies like Ravkoo, which partners with AFLDS to enable this ‘pill mill’.

Aside from the dangers posed to patients who follow AFLDS’s ‘Covid treatment regime’, AFLDS’ sales practices simply enable the irresponsible and unjustified prescription of many drugs that lead to addiction and pharmaceutical abuse.

AFLDS’ marketing campaign appeals to the conservative right-wing elements who have bought into the conspiracy theories surround both covid and the vaccines. It is the same group of unvaccinated people now stricken with the Delta variant, who currently occupy over 95% of the bed space in hospitals.

AFLDS has been selling them snake oil rather than vaccines. Many of these patients will die as a result.

Medika Life receives daily feedback from patients about the articles we’ve run on this group, many confirming the illegitimacy of AFLDS. The comment below is taken from a recent article we published highlighting AFLDS’ practices.

Quacks! I booked & paid for a doctor consultation on 08/03/2021. THEY NEVER CALLED ME, billed me $90.00 & have not returned my multiple emails to them. THEY ARE A SCAM!

Aside from the financial losses suffered by many of their patients, the health risk they pose to the general public is where the real concern lies. The welcome change in legislation will now ensure AFLDS’ future is short-lived and that participating professionals are sanctioned to the full extent of the law.

If you need to report a medical professional in your area, you need to contact the particular State licensing authority where the doctor involved practices. The link below will provide you with contact details for your particular state and you can also check the current status of the doctor you are reporting.

Most medical boards post validated complaints publically to allow other patients to respond. Boards will also make note of doctors under investigation. You can use the following link to check a doctor’s credentials and ensure you are reporting them to the correct medical board.

The post America’s Frontline Doctors Face Long Overdue Medical and Legal Censure appeared first on Medika Life.

The actual truth of their “frontline” engagement with Covid is a far cry from what they’d have you believe, most never having come remotely close to a Covid patient. Smoke, mirrors, and misdirection.

No good scam is replete without the monetization of the con and as time passes Americas Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) seem to have found the niche they’ve been looking for. Welcome to the “New Republics” medical branch. AFD will provide reasonably priced consultations and loosely regulated access to medication for all the extremists, QAnon members, and Republican radicals out there.

All from the comfort of your telehealth consultation.

This screenshot below, taken from the comments on a Children’s Health Defense article, the website run by anti-vaxxer, Robert F. Kennedy, Jnr, 

So there you have it. Simple quick, easy access to medicines that could potentially prove fatal (HCQ) to you. Just hop online and pay your $90. 

In case you’re wondering why people are still so concerned about contracting the SARS-CoV2 virus in a largely vaccinated American public, the answer is simple. This group and its advocates refuse to vaccinate themselves or their children.

For the unvaccinated, Covid still poses a huge risk and many of these individuals will end up in ICU facilities across the country over the next few months, placing yet further demands on America’s depleted public health resources. There is also no conclusive evidence to suggest hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are effective prophylaxis or treatments for Covid-19, so the AFLDS is potentially exposing thousands of Americans to real harm.

Actions you’d be hard-pressed to explain away as being supportive of the Hippocratic oath.

Buy the Lie

On the surface, AFLDS sells a hugely believable front, supported in no small part by their abundance of medical degrees and qualifications. Any layman looking at the site can be easily forgiven for being sucked into the con. The AFLDS’s main mouthpiece is none other than January 6 insurrection debutante, Dr. Simone Gold, currently awaiting trial for her part in storming the Capitol.

Now whilst most Americans would immediately do a double-take on this news, for the New Republicans, hell-bent on destroying America’s democracy, Gold’s presence in AFLDS serves more as a recommendation than a discouragement. Anti-vaccine propaganda (AFDLDS are anti-vaccine) litters their site and in their latest publicity stunt, they have turned to the courts to create more media furor.

On the 20th of May 2021, they filed a petition in the US District Court of Alabama, requesting a temporary injunction on covid vaccines being administered to children. Gold’s name is noticeably absent from the list of plaintiffs, for obvious reasons.

AMERICA’S FRONTLINE DOCTORS, ETC.; and DR. SCOTT JENSEN, MD, Individually; and ELLEN MILLER, Individually and as Guardian of 3 Minor Siblings; and JODY SOBCZAK, Individually and as Father of 2 Minor Children; and DEBORAH SOBCZAK, Individually and as Mother of 2 Minor Children; and LYLE BLOOM, Individually and as Father of 2 Minor Children; and, JULIE BLOOM, Individually and as Mother of 2 Minor Children; and ANDREA MCFARLANE, RN Individually and as Mother of 4 Minor Children; and JENNIFER GREENSLADE, Individually and as Mother of 2 Minor Children; and ….

In their claim, they state the following. Sections in parenthesis added by the author;

the injections (Covid Vaccines) are dangerous biological agents that have the potential to cause substantially greater harm than the COVID-19 disease itself, and numerous laws have been broken in the process of granting these EUAs and pushing these injections on the American people.

Like many other radical, conspiracy-based groups AFLDS has turned to alternate closed social media groups like Telegram to avoid censure on more traditional platforms.

And they’re not sitting about idly either. Gold and her entourage of Covid Vaccine doubters have taken their carnival show on the road, exploiting every Republican-based organization they can reach on their meandering path across the US.

The irony of a group of doctors running about across America bad-mouthing another group of doctors, and then expecting people to believe them because, well, “they’re doctors” cannot be lost on many.

If you’re in the market for accurate and evidence-based health advice we strongly recommend avoiding the AFLDS. If you come across one of their many shill’s advertising their services online, ignore them. Should you happen to see one of the shows advertised, save yourself some time and sanity. Go and watch a movie instead. It’s also fiction, but it isn’t going to harm your health.

That step too far

By associating with QAnon, radical elements, and anti-vaccine campaigners these doctors lend legitimacy to the causes they seek to exploit for financial gain. To many Americans, the goal of a “New Republic” isn’t merely a pipe dream but something they want to see realized.

A new regressive version of America, filled with racism, sexism, outdated religious doctrine, and free of reason and the rule of law. AFLDS would like to offer its services to this vision of America. All you need to access healthcare is your $90 and an internet connection. If they get their way, there’s going to be an awfully long hold before that telehealth call is connected.

They are playing a dangerous game and one that time itself will unravel as all their wild allegations about vaccine experimentation fall by the wayside. The concern now is how many innocent patients they lead astray in the interim, how many people have their health compromised by a group of individuals who swore an oath to protect them.

If you have a need to report any of the doctors engaged with AFLDS you can make use of the links provided below. We recommend lodging complaints with individual state boards where the doctors are licensed to practice.

The post America’s Frontline Doctors Want to Become the New Republic’s NIH appeared first on Medika Life.

If you’re not sure how our Quack Scale works, click here for a detailed explanation

Qualification: Wakefield studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School (now Imperial College School of Medicine), fully qualifying in 1981. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1985.

Current Licensing Status: In 2010 Wakefield was permanently stripped of his right to practice medicine in the United Kingdom by the British General Medical Council

Resident: USA

Existing Complaints: None. Wakefield fortunately no longer practices medicine and is not licensed in the US

Website: None

Corruption and deceit exposed

Andrew Wakefield is the disgraced British doctor who fabricated evidence, published in the respected medical journal The Lancet in 1998, to make a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism in young children, triggering a worldwide panic about the safety of vaccination. To explain this in more depth, I’ll reference large sections of an article written by Decca Aitkenhead of the Weekend Australian. You can access the full article here and it is an excellent read, providing insight into Wakefield’s personality and motivations.

The falsified paper

Wakefield claimed that, by an uncanny coincidence, 12 unrelated sets of parents from all over the country had independently brought their child to see him. According to the paper, parent after parent had told him a ­chillingly similar story: within 14 days — and in some cases within hours — of receiving the MMR vaccine, their hitherto developmentally normal child was displaying symptoms of severe autism. The truth of what actually transpired was vastly different from Wakefield’s initial claims.

What Wakefield had concealed from his ­colleagues, including co-authors of the paper, was that these parents had been referred to him by a personal injury lawyer with whom he was secretly working. Wakefield was essentially running a ­litigation factory at the Royal Free, fabricating ­evidence for a class-action suit against the MMR vaccine. He was receiving a fortune in funding for his “research” from the lawyer, thanks to the Legal Aid Board. And he stood to profit from his research’s conclusion that separate jabs for measles, mumps, and rubella were a safer alternative to the combined MMR, since he was busy patenting his own single-shot measles vaccine.

Most of this information would have remained hidden and Wakefield may very well have escaped detection had it not been for a journalist, Brian Deer, who smelled a rat and pursued Wakefield remorselessly. Wakefield then made a strategic blunder deciding to sue Deer unsuccessfully, for libel. In the end, this action proved his undoing. The court case gave Deer access to the confidential records of the patients involved and it was easily determined that some of the children had indeed displayed symptoms long before they were vaccinated and in some cases, months after.

The Charismatic Conman

To understand how Wakefield could survive the consequences of public embarrassment and humiliation and thrive in the face of his self-inflicted adversity, it’s worthwhile understanding the man himself. He is as charismatic as he is deceptive and his charms have stood him in good stead, allowing him to call on the support of women in various roles throughout his life. His game plan of painting himself as the victim of institutional crucifixion has paid handsome dividends, enabling him to mislead one person after another.

Among the supportive donors who encouraged Wakefield’s US revival after his flight from the UK, Chicago lawyer ­Elizabeth Birt, who raised the money for him to start a new life and sponsored his US visa, wealthy horsewoman Troylyn Ball, and Jane Johnson of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical family; Ball and Johnson set him up in a $280,000-a-year job created just for him. In November 2017, at an anti-vaccine event in Florida, Wakefield was introduced to Elle Macpherson. The rest, as they say, is history.

Wakefield has turned himself into vaccine medicine’s self-styled martyr claiming he was silenced by the British establishment for exposing the “truth”. Its been a massively successful strategy. The 63-year-old conman is now feted by conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers alike. He was a guest at ­Donald Trump’s inauguration ball and enjoys close relationships with Robert F Kennedy Jnr, Del Bigtree, and the autism anti-vaxxer, Polly Tommey, one of his first ‘disciples’.

For a far more detailed analysis of Wakefield’s life, click here

Why Wakefield lost his medical license

After a painfully thorough three-year investigation, the British General Medical Council (GMC) uncovered shocking aspects of Wakefield’s abuse of his medical credentials and position that left them in no doubt as to their course of action. Wakefield was stripped of his right to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.

Charges leveled at Wakefiled suggested he;

• Was being paid to conduct the study by solicitors representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR
• Ordered investigations “without the requisite pediatric qualifications” including colonoscopies, colon biopsies and lumbar punctures (“spinal taps”) on his research subjects without the approval of his department’s ethics board and contrary to the children’s clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children’s symptoms or medical history.
• Act[ed] dishonestly and irresponsibly in failing to disclose … how patients were recruited for the study
• Conduct[ed] the study on a basis not approved by the hospital’s ethics committee.
• Purchased blood samples — for £5 each — from children present at his son’s birthday party, which Wakefield joked about in a later presentation.
• Showed callous disregard for any distress or pain the children might suffer

On 28 January 2010, the GMC ruled against Wakefield on all issues, stating that he had “failed in his duties as a responsible consultant”, acted against the interests of his patients, and “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in his controversial research. On 24 May 2010, he was struck off the United Kingdom medical register. It was the harshest sanction that the GMC could impose, and effectively ended his career as a doctor. In announcing the ruling, the GMC said that Wakefield had;

 “brought the medical profession into disrepute,” and no sanction short of erasing his name from the register was appropriate for the “serious and wide-ranging findings” of misconduct

On the money front

• In December 2006, Deer released records obtained from the Legal Services Commission, showing that it had paid £435,643 in undisclosed fees to Wakefield for the purpose of building a case against the MMR vaccine. Those payments, The Sunday Times reported, had begun two years before the publication of Wakefield’s fraudulent paper inThe Lancet. Wakefield had failed to disclose these payments.
• Wakefield applied for a patent on a single-jab measles vaccine before his campaign against the MMR vaccine, raising questions about his motives. Deer discovered this application, despite assurances from Wakefield’s attorneys that no such application was lodged.
• Wakefield also, according to court documents, improperly or dishonestly lent his reputation to the International Child DevelopmentResource Centre, which promoted to very vulnerable parents expensive products for whose efficacy (as he knew or should have known) there was no scientific evidence. No mention is made of money here, but it was clearly a quid pro quo arrangement.

Experimenting on vulnerable children

This is perhaps the most repulsive part of Wakefield’s past and points to an individual with complete disregard for human life, someone woefully unsuited to a career in medicine or in any field relating to public health.

• An extension of his project caused life-threatening complications in one child, who received substantial compensation in an out-of-court settlement. You can read the full article here, written by Rachel Ellis Ellis and published 10 December 2007. “£500,000 for boy left fighting for life after being used as MMR guinea pig”
• As mentioned, evidence he himself validated emerged that he had “bought blood” at £5 a turn from children attending his son’s birthday party.
• Other instances exist of unsanctioned procedures he performed, these can readily be googled.

Dishonest or deluded?

Without a doubt, calculatingly dishonest. The level of manipulation and fraud involved with Wakefield’s fictitious paper are a clear indicator he was under no illusions induced by poor research but wilfully intended to support his own preconceived narrative for personal gain. A few of the lies identified in the paper included the following.

• Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism; 
• Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were “previously normal”, five had documented preexisting developmental concerns; 
• Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioral symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination; 
• In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results — noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations — were changed after a medical school “research review” to “non-specific colitis”; 
• The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations — all giving times to onset of problems in months — helped to create the appearance of a 14-day temporal link; 
• Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation.

In a statement from British Medical Journal (BMJ) editors, this conclusion;

A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction; misreporting was gross. Moreover, although the scale of the GMC’s 217 day hearing precluded additional charges focused directly on the fraud, the panel found him guilty of dishonesty concerning the study’s admissions criteria, its funding by the Legal Aid Board, and his statements about it afterwards.

Deer also further reported, based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that Wakefield — in partnership with the father of one of the boys in the study — had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and “litigation driven testing”.

Wakefield predicted he “could make more than $43 million a year from diagnostic kits” for the new condition, autistic enterocolitis, he was set upon creating. According to Deer’s report in BMJ, the ventures, Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd and Carmel Healthcare Ltd — named after Wakefield’s wife — failed after Wakefield’s superiors at University College London’s medical school gave him a two-page letter stating the following;

We remain concerned about a possible serious conflict of interest between your academic employment by UCL, and your involvement with Carmel … This concern arose originally because the company’s business plan appears to depend on premature, scientifically unjustified publication of results, which do not conform to the rigorous academic and scientific standards that are generally expected

It is impossible to come away from all this damning evidence without forming the following opinion. Far from being a victim of ‘establishment ire’ as Wakefield would have you believe, it is clear that he is in fact exactly the opposite.

Andrew Wakefield is a cold, calculating con artist with a medical degree. He willfully misled the public, has endangered thousands of children’s lives by casting doubt on vaccines, and has manipulated his environment and everyone in his immediate sphere of influence for his own personal, financial gain. As unpleasant a person as one could hope to cross paths with and we owe Brian Deer a great deal of gratitude for the copious time and effort he has invested in exposing the real Andrew Wakefield.

To those who choose to associate with Wakefield, I would urge caution. The truth has a nasty habit of turning on those who choose to ignore it and if you’re sitting around the pool sipping martini’s with Mr. Wakefield, you’ve chosen to ignore it or you are simply no better than he.

Vaxxed, or ‘How to profit from deception’

Assert something over and over in public and it must be true, even if it is glaringly apparent it isn’t. It’s a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook and a tactic Wakefield has combined with his charismatic personality. Had he been born in America, Wakefield could very well have ended up on the next Republican ticket, such is the extent of his ability to deflect, obfuscate and manipulate the truth for his own personal and financial gain.

Vaxxed, released in 2016 was Wakefield’s first attempt to take things up a notch, having built a circle of relative protection around himself in his adopted homeland. He turned to Polly Tommey, one of his most devout disciples and fervent supporters, to appear in the video. She had followed closely on Wakefield’s heels, abandoning the UK for American soil and by no small coincidence, was also located in Texas. Tommey was ably supported in the movie by fellow anti-vaxxers, a complete list is shown below.

Vaxxed is a pseudoscience propaganda documentary film alleging a cover-up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of a purported link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The film was supposed to debut at the Tribeca Film festival but was withdrawn by the festival organizers. Indiewire said in a review of the film at the time;

“Wakefield doesn’t just have a dog in this fight; he is the dog”

The film was produced by Autism Media Channel, of which Wakefield is a director. Unsurprisingly, Del Bigtree was listed as a producer. After the film was dropped from the Tribeca Film Festival, it was picked up for distribution by Cinema Libre. The film premiered at the Angelika Film Center in New York City on April 1, 2016 to an audience of “a few dozen. There are multiple reliable online resources that discredit the movie, highlighting the obvious deception and bare-faced lies it offers by way of storyline. You can read more on that here and here.

Perhaps the best reason not to watch this propaganda rubbish is best encapsulated by this fantastic ani-flyer produced by Dawn Pederson and shown below. You can download this as a PDF here. Vaxxed should be seen for exactly what it is. A pathetic attempt by Wakefield to revive his failing fortunes and his stooges and lackeys that assist him so willingly will live to regret it. Ask his previous research assistants.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Brian Deer for his tireless efforts to ensure the truth about Andrew Wakefield was revealed. He has released a book on the sordid case entitled ‘The Doctor who fooled the world’. Brian’s website can be found here

Andrew Wakefield’s images are all used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, and increase public health knowledge.

The post Andrew Wakefield, the ultimate medical con on Medika’s Quack Scale appeared first on Medika Life.

Just as with the quality of a news source, health news also varies in quality. When you combine this with marketing tactics, such as sensationalist titles and methods that draw the ever-stimulating emotion, knowledge can be shaped in ways that do not correctly inform. One can understand the impact of these tactics like that of a public speaker. Many are drawn to those who touch on base emotions, like fear or love, and offer a proposed solution or agreeable outcome.

This can attach a user to the source, regardless of whether it is correct or evidence-based. When sources suggest that vaccines cause autism or are more dangerous than the disease (both have been refuted), using fear and confidence can get more views (and money), motivating improperly informed health decisions. These are the tactics of con (wo)men. A con does not necessarily require one to personally steal stock options.

The recent Canadian Twitter hashtag of #JUSTSAYNO is an excellent example of this. Multiple individuals falsely suggested that the COVID vaccines were dangerous and their risks overweighed their benefits. In reality, COVID vaccines are very safe. You are much better off getting the vaccine than the disease (little chance of death or post-COVID syndrome versus roughly 5% chance of death and probability of feeling terrible for an indefinite period).

Of course, such actions are not necessarily motivated by unethical motives. If I genuinely believed that pizza saved lives, I would encourage everyone to do whatever they could to get pizza. I think most people want to help others at the end of the day using what they know and believe to be right. This requires consumers to appraise what they consume critically. This includes health information. While this is what the subpopulations of physicians and scientists do every day, decisions matter for everyone.

How can consumers critically appraise information they do not necessarily have a background in and thus rely on others for an informed perspective? Just as what is taught for graduate and medical students, considering the source of information is central. This includes having skepticism about what is published on less trustworthy platforms, including Medium and putting even my writing into question.

Science literature is determined to be a more-trustworthy source because it is peer-reviewed. This means that what is written is validated by others in the field, and improvements, like additional experiments, can be required before considered canon and published. Medium and the typical “donteateggs.com” generally do not have this. My writing would be regarded as less trustworthy because it is not peer-reviewed.

This is why it is also essential to consider an individual’s credentials. When I read primary literature from peer-reviewed journals, the amount of trust I put in a paper includes the authors’ credentials, such as their degrees, institution, whether what they are discussing is in their field of expertise, the quality of the journal, among many other factors. In general, I trust individuals with MDs and PhDs more than those without concerning science because such training includes learning how to appraise literature and better present objective truth critically.

While such individuals do not always do this, like the (in)famous Dr. Oz, certain degrees support their arguments. While those without a college degree can have quite valuable perspectives and observations, I would put a lot less trust in their guidance when managing human lives. I would certainly never want my doctor to prescribe me fish oil if I had a heart attack.

While having more education can make one a more trustworthy source of information from an academic perspective, one does not need this extra training to think critically about the story one reads. An excellent first step for anyone seeking to gain perspective is to reflect on the feelings you experience when you read sensationalist news titles. Is it fear, anger, or sadness? If you understand what you are feeling, you can place what you are reading in that perspective to understand why the article is appealing to you. This simple act can guide more informed decisions.

The post Why Should I Critically Appraise Health News? appeared first on Medika Life.

World renown vaccine specialist, Geert Vanden Bossche, gave a groundbreaking interview this week risking his reputation and his career by bravely speaking out against administration of #Covid19 vaccines. In what may be one of the most important stories ever covered by The Highwire, the vaccine developer shared his extreme concerns about these vaccines in particular and why we may be on track to creating a global immunity catastrophe.

We aren’t going to bother linking to the “brave, reputation-risking” Vanden Bossche article. If you want to waste your time reading it, you can always find it on his 12-day old Twitter account, if it hasn’t been suspended by now, or on one of the many channels promoting anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theories, just scroll down to A for Alien-Abductions and Anti-Vaxxers.

Vanden Bossche has gone to great lengths to explain to us in his opening statement that he is definitely not anti-vaccine. No sir, not in a month of Sundays. Not little old me. Our response? Thou doth protest too much. Here’s an exert of just how much he in fact protests.

I am all but an antivaxxer. As a scientist I do not usually appeal to any platform of this kind to make a stand on vaccine-related topics. As a dedicated virologist and vaccine expert I only make an exception when health authorities allow vaccines to be administered in ways that threaten public health, most certainly when scientific evidence is being ignored. The present extremely critical situation forces me to spread this emergency call. As the unprecedented extent of human intervention in the Covid-19- pandemic is now at risk of resulting in a global catastrophe without equal, this call cannot sound loudly and strongly enough.

As stated, I am not against vaccination. On the contrary, I can assure you that each of the current vaccines have been designed, developed and manufactured by brilliant and competent scientists. However, this type of prophylactic vaccines are completely inappropriate, and even highly dangerous, when used in mass vaccination campaigns during a viral pandemic. Vaccinologists, scientists and clinicians are blinded by the positive short-term effects in individual patents, but don’t seem to bother about the disastrous consequences for global health. Unless I am scientifically proven wrong, it is difficult to understand how current human interventions will prevent circulating variants from turning into a wild monster.

Racing against the clock, I am completing my scientfic manuscript, the publication of which is, unfortunately, likely to come too late given the ever increasing threat from rapidly spreading, highly infectious variants. This is why I decided to already post a summary of my findings as well as my keynote speech at the recent Vaccine Summit in Ohio on LinkedIn. Last Monday, I provided international health organizations, including the WHO, with my analysis of the current pandemic as based on scientifically informed insights in the immune biology of Covid-19.

Sadly for Vanden Bossche, this is an all too familiar tactic employed by almost every single critic of the covid vaccine and laughably, even some anti-vaxxers. In fact, his whole concept looks and sounds suspiciously plagiarized. Perhaps Dr.Hooman Noorchashm might consider legal action if he doesn’t have his hands too full right now.

Take these points raised by David Gorski on his blog, in an article that thoroughly eviscerates our European “expert”.

Like Dr. Noorchashm, Dr. Vanden Bossche has not published his concerns in the scientific literature. Like Dr. Noorchashm, Dr. Vanden Bossche bases his concerns not on data, but theoretical “basic science” concerns about immunology. Like Dr. Noorchashm, Dr. Vanden Bossche has sounded his “warning” to various health authorities. Like Dr. Noorchashm, Dr. Vanden Bossche has taken to social media to air his concerns, and his message has been enthusiastically embraced by anti-vaxxers:

Vanden Bossche has published a scant amount of work, and tellingly he chooses predatory publishers like Longdom, owner of the Journal of Vaccines & Vaccination. It’s a dubious publication at best and is listed as predatory on Beals List. Longdom Publishing enjoys no credibility as a medical publisher, and articles are not peer-reviewed or exposed to scrutiny. 

Why not choose recognized and peer-reviewed journals to publish into? Well, if the work you’re publishing is dubious, not based on evidence but rather wild conjecture you’ve formulated in your own mind and not scientifically tested in the real world, well then Predatory publications are the way to go, followed by the hugely reliable, science-based platform of social media and the anti-vaxxer vlog circuit.

Here is an open question to Vanden Bossche. If you’re so eager not to be perceived as an anti-vaxxer why have you climbed into bed with them, why do you align yourself with people like Bigtree, Wakefield, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jnr, who actively seek to undermine the science of vaccines? I’m really interested to know? Are they simply using you and you’re too stupid to see it or was their bus the only one that stopped to pick you up? I suspect the latter.

I’ve decided to opt for a different approach on this article and will, instead of trying to disassemble the fictional ramblings of Vanden Bossche, allow others, more knowledgable in the field, to step into the breach. Many experts (real ones) have already taken the article to pieces, explaining in scientific (real science) terms why Vanden Bossche is deluded. 

There another reason for this approach. Vanden Bossche bases his claims on well-established and accepted vaccine science. He is intimately familiar with his topic and if you wish to understand exactly why his statements and warnings are completely fanciful, you will need a far more detailed explanation than we are able to provide here. Fortunately, very qualified individuals have stepped forward and provided exact and specific deconstructions of his fanciful theories. Here then, in no particular order

Dr. Zubin Damania provides a fantastic video with a simplified explanation of why Vanden Bossche is wrong. If you’re not that technically inclined, this video will provide a far clearer understanding than the articles listed below which focus on the specifics of vaccines.

Geert Vanden Bossche is to COVID-19 vaccines as Andrew Wakefield is to MMR

An essential read by respectfulinsolence.com, well written and referenced, for those looking to understand the more technical flaws in Vanden Bossche’s theories. The article also highlights how Vanden Bossche has borrowed and plagiarized his concepts from well-known anti-vaxxers and other vaccine skeptics.

Addressing Geert Vanden Bossche’s Claims

A detailed deconstruction offered by Edward Nirenberg. Orac describes this article fittingly as Nirenberg’s demolition of Vanden Bossche’s nonsense about “innate immunity,”. Definitely for the more technically minded, the arguments posed by Nirenberg conclusively bury Vanden Bossche.

Who is Geert Vanden Bossche?

Still think Vanden Bossche is a renowned vaccine expert? This article will expose him for who he really is. Discover the real Vanden Bossche in this article on Vaxopedia by Vincent Iannelli, MD. If you were wondering why you’d never heard about Vanden Bossche before today, this article will put you dead to rights.

The final word

Is Vanden Bossche merely deluded, or simply misguided in his interpretation of vaccine science. His level of education and experience in the field tend to suggest another agenda, as does his regurgitation of existing vaccine rhetoric, notably those offered by Andrew Wakefield and Hooman Noorchashm. He is rebranding their narratives for his own agenda, but what is that agenda?

Wakefield, if you didn’t know, is the disgraced and disavowed author of a retracted, fraudulent paper on MMR vaccines, supposedly linking autism to the MMR vaccine. Despite the best efforts of many, Wakefield continues to seek the spotlight and frequently pens misleading drivel. He has become one of the roach poster-boys for anti-vaxxers.

On the topic of grift, let’s turn to another article that seeks to expose Vanden Bossche’s not-so-hidden agenda.

In an article published in the Defender, Rosemary Frei, MSc, outlines what she says are “a few of the dozens of clues” suggesting that Bossche’s argument “is a continuation of the overall COVID deception.” There be gold in them thar hills!

There’s abundant evidence that Vanden Bossche has a not-so-hidden agenda. For example, just before the three-minute mark in the video interview of Vanden Bossche by McMillan, Vanden Bossche indicates he’s a long-time vaccine developer. He adds he’s now focusing on vaccines that “educate the immune system in ways that are to some extent more efficient than we do right now with our conventional vaccines.” Clearly he’s got significant conflicts of interest. Therefore he has zero credibility when it comes to advising the public or anyone else about how to avoid negative effects of mass vaccination.

We’ll accord the honors of the closing paragraph to David Gorski, who echoes our sentiments on Vanden Bossche.

You know what? I think that grifters recognize fellow grifters, and Frei recognized that Dr. Vanden Bossche is stoking fear of existing COVID-19 vaccines to produce a sales rationale for his own NK-based vaccine, just as Andrew Wakefield stoked fear of the MMR in order to support his own measles vaccine. Grifters of a feather, and all that, and, of course, grifters gonna grift. Always.

UPDATE: May 8, 2021, We’ve added a new piece on Geert Vanden Bossche’s disinformation campaign. You can read the article here

The post Fact-Checking Geert Vanden Bossche. Cashing in on Covid Misinformation appeared first on Medika Life.

A very relevant GcMAF history

GcMAF first sprang to internet notoriety in 2015, with an alternate health and conspiracy publication, Natural News, claiming the following.

A particular cure named GcMAF (short for “Gc protein-derived macrophage activating factor,” which is a chemically altered form of a natural protein that allegedly stimulates the activity of a specific kind of white blood cell) “has the potential to be a universal cure for cancer”

It didn’t take long for GcMAF to attain messianic status in the world of online hocus pocus and make-believe medical cures. Natural News continued in the same article;

“[GcMAF] is also believed,” the web site reported, “to be capable of treating and reversing autism, HIV, liver/kidney disease and diabetes.” Rumor has it that GcMAF has the potential to be a cure for even more diseases, such as herpes, as well.”

Despite the numerous research articles published in reputable medical journals (most now retracted) claiming to validate GcMAF as effective in the treatment of cancers, GcMAF does not cure cancer, or for that matter, any other ailment. It was, and possibly still is, a drug for which there is no clear clinical evidence to suggest efficacy for anything. Hints of promise have never translated into actual results.

How it came to be considered by some as the cure-all for cancer, is another tale entirely, and one well worth following. In a 2017 expose by Snopes, ably assisted by the Anticancer Fund (ACF), GcMAF was finally exposed. In the article, its creator and main proponent, Dr. Nobuto Yamamoto. was shown to be guilty of falsifying clinical trials in a concerted decades-long effort to sell the lie of GcMAF.

The seriousness and implications of Yamamoto’s fraud have widespread implications for the medical community, its publications, and the processes it depends on to validate new medicines. It has highlighted how a once-respected member of the medical community can go rogue, using the system’s “fail-safes” against it. The GcMAF saga shouldn’t be forgotten. It serves as a permanent reminder of unaddressed industry loopholes, most of which remain in place.

The result of publishers not removing flawed research results in yet more papers, based on the theories promoted in the original disproven research. Here is a classic example, where two of Yamamoto’s papers on GcMAF have been referenced by researchers, in a recent paper entitled “Potential role of GcMAF in suppressing the severity of COVID-19-induced immune responses: Lesson learned from HIV”.

Two questions to the publications involved. Why have you refused to retract Yamamoto’s erroneous papers and where is the peer review process that would identify the research in the paper referenced above to be flawed? Allowing erroneous and flawed studies to persist endangers the public.

You can find the complete Snopes Article here. Entitled, “How a Retired Scientist’s Questionable ‘Institute’ Convinced the Internet That Cancer Was Cured”, it makes for fascinating reading and we recommend it as a case study in professionally perpetrated pharmaceutical deception. Yamamoto had enjoyed a long and distinguished career till GcMAF, making the motivation for the fraud that much harder to determine, and experts remain divided on his true motivation.

In November of 2009, Yamamoto successfully sold his patents for GcMAF and related intellectual property to an Israeli biopharmaceutical company, Efranat Macrophage. The company, after initially embracing Yamamoto, gradually distanced itself from him, rebranding GcMAF as EFF-022 and going as far as changing the drug’s name mid-trial.

While the medical community gradually turned their backs on GcMAF, the alternate health and conspiracy sections of the internet were far from done with their new darling, having seen the marketing and sales potential for this new “miracle” cure.

From fake medicine to alternate health cure-all

Enter David Noakes, UK founder of Immuno Biotech Ltd, and Dr. Jefferey Broadstreet. In November of 2018 Noakes, was sentenced to 15 months in prison by a UK court over charges of manufacturing, selling, and supplying an unlicensed medicine, as well as money laundering. He was arrested again in London in 2020 for extradition to France.

The unlicensed medicine, Globulin component Macrophage Activating Factor (GcMAF), a product manufactured from human blood, was advertised as a cure for conditions, such as cancer, HIV, and autism. Between the years of 2012 and 2015, it has been estimated that Noakes made approximately £10 million through sales of GcMAF. It was sold online, through websites across Europe.

Jeffrey Bradstreet, a controversial American doctor involved with Noakes’ Immuno Biotech. had previously published a number of papers suggesting that GcMAF could “cure” children with autism, and his suicide following a raid on that company and his own clinic spawned conspiracy theories about the government’s and Big Pharma’s merciless goal to hide a cure for cancer.

The raid on Immuno Biotech’s production facility that preceded Bradstreet’s death revealed that materials used in their production of their GcMAF (i.e., blood plasma) were explicitly labeled that they not be administered to humans or used in the production of drugs.

Japan also got in on the act. Today, the company, Saisei-Mirai is still at it, rebranding GcMAF as MAF, they now sell the product as a cure-all and have highlighted Covid-19 as one of the diseases MAF can cure or treat.

Saisai-Mirai created and patented what they call “second-generation GcMAF,” announcing the therapy in a misleading advertisement in the journal Nature Outlooks that was formatted to look like a peer-reviewed study (and has been cited as such). There is no clinical evidence to support any of the claims made by the company or any other company that still sells the product.

Saisai-Mirai also sells its GcMAF concoction from another site, Heart Products Online Pharmacy, and competition to sell GcMAF is so aggressive within the alternate health industry that it has gone to pains on its site to discredit a competitor, gcmafplus (see below) by posting the following ironic warning.

-FAKE PRODUCTS WARNING-

3rd Generation GcMAF was developed by Saisei Pharma for which we hold patents. There are fake GcMAF products sold online in Australia by a company which is registered in Hong Kong. Please be aware that 3rd Generation GcMAF products are only produced by Saisei Pharma. Any other products from other companies are fake products.

Rebranded for the alternate health sector

Now widely sold globally as a “supplement” GcMAF evades efforts to remove it from the public space. As a supplement, it escapes strict regulation and with clever marketing that avoids alluding directly to medicinal claims, the product still generates millions in global sales. Every cent of that turnover is provided by desperate, exploited people, willing to risk anything in search of a cure.

Perhaps the most eloquent description of this abusive practice is best left to Alex Kasprak, author of the Snopes articles referenced above;

Aside from the safety issues created by the undervetted promotion of GcMAF by online profiteers, the viral promotion of conspiracy theories suggesting that sinister government or corporate entities are purposely keeping GcMAF from the public means that those who search online for cures for cancer, AIDS, or other ailments in the wake of terrifying diagnoses are likely to find information about GcMAF and led into believing in what is almost assuredly a false ray of hope. That ray of hope would be misleadingly supported by the appearance of legitimate-looking research presented by an institute run from a retired scientist’s home:

The criminal intent that drives these companies continues unabated. The Australian/Hong Kong/US-based GCMAF Plus has turned it into big business, and the very existence of the site, the terminology used for marketing, and the clear intent of selling an unproven treatment for autism and cancer, is a massive indictment of the medical regulation that exists in the aforementioned countries. This company is selling unproven treatments and misleading vulnerable members of the public.

These customer recommendations are plastered across the website’s front page.

Interestingly, in their disclaimer, the website states the following;

Furthermore, users of this product who have children in their home, must take care as they are 100% responsible in ensuring that their child /children do not touch and/or eat the product. The sellers and/or manufacturers are in no way responsible for any acts of children under or outside of their parent’s care.

The potential diseases the website highlights for treatment are mind-blowing and how this does not put off any potential customer defies reason.

According to their website, the company resides in Hong Kong (Neich Tower, Gloucester Rd. Hong Kong) and their products are manufactured and delivered from inside Australia. Medika has reached out to the two accreditation companies’ certificates shown in the footer of the website to enquire as to their validity and the companies’ motivation for issuing them.

No address other than a US /care-of address, PO Box 639, Kirkland, WA 98083–0639, WHOIS privacy, is shown on the site and Medika had contacted the company for further details.

Medika intends to register formal complaints with Paypal, the website’s payment processor, and licensing and regulatory authorities in the countries in which this website operates and sells, starting with the US FDA and DOJ. Consider yourself warned. Shut down your business now. Your unethical, sickening marketing tactics and exploitation of sick and vulnerable members of the community are at an end.

Interestingly, our research for the originating company behind this website led us to https://akesisoncology.com/, otherwise known as Akesis Life, another alternative medical scam run out of Thailand, offering a variety of unproven cancer treatments, including GcMAF. Medika was unable to establish if the two companies are indeed linked. Suffice it to say, if you suffering from cancer, save yourself money and heartache and don’t book a trip to Thailand.

GcMAF is still freely available on the internet and can even be ordered off Amazon, proof of the power and manipulation of discredited research by unethical agents from the alt-health sector. It also speaks volumes to the desperation of people suffering from cancer, autism, and the whole spectrum of diseases the drug claims to treat. GcMAF has been banned across Europe, but can still be ordered from foreign websites.

Covid and GcMAF

Finally, adding another disease to its long list of magical properties, GcMAF sellers have focused on Covid-19 and although it may have bolstered sales, this “addition” may also lead to a much-deserved death knell for the drug.

Much of the Covid-19 related research is based on Yamamoto’s older GcMAF studies, rigorously proven to now be flawed, and yet these studies still persist in certain publications, that have patently refused to retract, notably Translational Oncology and AIDS Research & Human Retroviruses. The dangers of their dogged refusal are clear and the consequences have now been made glaringly obvious. Mistakes compound further mistakes and in medicine, this can be deadly.

GcMAF is not a magic bullet and does not offer relief, treat or cure Covid-19 symptoms or the disease itself. There is zero clinical evidence to support any claims and any substantive papers published are theoretical and use the original flawed materials and papers as reference.

It is very worrying that Medika authors, with no pharmacological training, can identify these issues and yet they seem to elude publications like Elsevier. Again, proper, sufficiently educated independent peer review is glaringly absent and if we are to rely on these publications for authenticity, they need to be fit for purpose.

Is it dangerous?

The risk for reaction exists with the use of any drug. Although the drug has not been shown to exhibit serious side effects within certain dosages, you may as well be drinking water. To repeat, in case you hadn’t gotten the message by now, the drug does none of what it claims.

Additionally, unscrupulous manufacturers will cut costs any way they can, using ingredients in their formulations that aren’t approved for human consumption. You have zero guarantees of ingredient purity as supplements are very loosely regulated and this results in a free-for-all. In fact, you’ve no idea at all what is put into the bottle of cream, lotion, tablet, or extract you are sold. Why would you choose to trust these companies?

If you’ve been taken in by the GcMAF scam, please don’t feel bad. Many medical and scientific people were conned and some still haven’t seen the light. Always check with a registered medical healthcare provider before you start using any alternate medication or supplements and if you have doubts, check online. There are numerous companies like Medika Life that highlight dangerous practices and products.

The post GcMAF, a Cancer Cure Con That Just Refuses to Die, Returns to Cure Covid appeared first on Medika Life.

They are doing all this for money and they need to be stopped.

We are not referring to the healthcare heroes on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic, but a group of medical misfits that have appropriated the name America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLD), as a moniker for their motley band of quacks and con artists. They are extremely dangerous, with ties to radical conservative extremists, witchcraft, paranoia, conspiracies, and do not possess a shred of actual experience dealing with Covid patients on the frontlines of the pandemic. They are, in short, frauds, exploiting a pandemic for their own financial gain.

They are, and we are ashamed to admit it, doctors. Doctors, however, in name only and that is the intent of this article. If, like so many of us, you would like to see the end of their orchestrated campaign of covid misinformation and attacks on the covid vaccine, join us in deplatforming their social media, reporting them to their individual medical boards, and filing reports with the Department of Justice. They are an affront to the medical profession and a danger to public health.

Their website blatantly tries to combat official Covid-19 advice and destroy public confidence in the covid vaccines for reasons we will explain below. Here is a screenshot from their website where they refer to the vaccines as experimental. This is a false and misleading statement.

They continue to spread advice about hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid despite this having been publically disproven by open studies conducted under the auspices of the World Health Organization and other medical boards. They continue to question the efficacy of masks, thereby encouraging the spread of the virus. Their actions will lead to trusting members of the public accepting their advice and people will die as a result of severe Covid-19. It could be someone close to you.

If you want to protect vulnerable members of your community, register your outrage by contacting the links in the footer of this article or reporting the individual doctors to their relevant medical boards (shown below each doctor listed below).

If you don’t think they pose a risk, then have a look at their petition to stop the covid vaccines. If they were to have their way, your grandparents, parents, and at-risk sectors of our community would be facing Covid-19 without the benefit of a vaccine. Still, think they aren’t dangerous?

Incidentally, no one is enforcing the covid vaccine. That is patently untrue and under the American constitution, you cannot be forced into taking a vaccine. It remains a personal choice.

Their website displays a whole range of supposed “hydroxychloroquine home treatments” for Covid-19, the suggestion a clear one. You can treat Covid-19 at home. This is untrue, not based on any verifiable clinical data and in flagrant breach of the FDA’s policy of advertising cures or treatments for Covid-19. The following screenshot is again taken from their website, in the event they should remove it.

To be clear, there are no home treatments for Covid-19. If you suspect you have contracted the coronavirus, please quarantine and if you are in an at-risk category, dial 9-1-1 and seek immediate medical help.

Why all the effort?

Great question and as will all these cons, profit is at the heart of the sales pitch. In this instance, it wasn’t even very well hidden. Initially, politics and Trump’s agenda to reopen America provided funding and impetus for this group. With those agenda’s now behind them, the business has been repurposed for profit.

Convince the American public you have the cure for Covid-19 in the form of hydroxychloroquine and then proceed to supply it to them through your network of unethical doctors, who are only too happy to write out prescriptions that a complicit pharmacy then fills.

The players in this not so elaborate con are as follows. America’s Frontline Doctors, Ravkoo Pharmacy and Speakwithanmd.com

Here’s how the chain works, not that it’s important, but it will provide a roadmap for the FDA and DOJ to follow. I encourage any journalists who want to explore and expose existing relationships between these entities to investigate further.

Step 1: American Frontline Doctors – The marketing arm

They discredit conventional Covid-19 treatments and scare people off the vaccine in favor of hydroxychloroquine, which as we all know, isn’t that simple to get hold of anymore. They achieve this with a concerted campaign of misinformation and pseudoscientific materials published on their website and spread through social media. They become visible, they become political and they become radical. At the top of their site is a link to purchase hydroxychloroquine, which takes you to this page.

Step 2: Speakwithanmd.com – Distribution

You cant shift your product, which, annoyingly, requires a prescription, without the necessary paperwork. How do you address this across numerous states? Easy, you hook up with an online service that allows your network of doctors to prescribe to their heart’s delight, state by state. Possibly the cleverest bit of the con. You can see the network on this page and I suspect having a look at the prescriptions issued by these doctors would make for fascinating reading.

Here’s what their page says about America’s Frontline Doctors on Speakwithanmd;

• America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) are available in every state. Physician Consult Fee is $90. We see patients between 7 am and 9 pm and we will try hard to see you on the day you contact us but it could be the next day.

• Through telemedicine we can offer convenient and affordable healthcare services to patients. Telemedicine is an excellent option for nonemergency situations, including prophylactic (preventive) and early (home) treatment of COVID-19.

• Our physicians are hydroxychloroquine knowledgeable and fully aware of the science and data regarding its safety and efficacy.

Step 3: Ravkoo Pharmacy – Fulfillment

Linked on their page on Speakwithanmd.com is Ravkoo Pharmacy. Officially, according to America’s Frontline Doctors, partnered with them to ensure all the scripts are quickly filled and dispatched. We have reached out to the Ravkoo CEO, Alpesh Patel for comment regarding their association with AFLD, but have not, at the time of publication, received a response.

Cutting the head off the snake

Let’s start with the originator or founder of AFLD, Dr. Simone Gold. Her most recent claim to fame is a photograph of her in the Capitol building, surrounded by her fellow protestors, after having forcibly gained entry. Her statement that she did not know it was illegal to enter the building should be seen for what it is. Complete bullshit.

She is a trained Stanford lawyer. Ignorance, claimed or otherwise, is not acceptable as a legal defense. You lie, Ms. Gold, and you should be locked up, along with your other seditious conspirators.

Simone Gold, MD, JD, is a board-certified emergency physician in Los Angeles, California. You can view her current status here. She graduated from Chicago Medical School before attending Stanford University Law School to earn her Juris Doctorate degree. Impressed? Well, don’t be. We all know education is not a prerequisite for either common sense, morals, or ethics, none of which Ms. Gold appears to possess.

Her California medical license includes her unverified claim that she is involved in patient care 30-39 hours per week and indicates a practice location in Hesperia, a bedroom community of about 100,000 at the edge of the Mojave Desert. Efforts to determine where specifically she may practice were unsuccessful.

Any platform offering medical advice alongside the sale of the founder’s book and featuring prominent “donate” buttons all over the site is by definition, highly suspect. The strapline Gold uses to advertise their site “Empowering patients and physicians with independent, evidence-based medicine.” is laughable. There is no hard evidence-based medicine taking place in their deluded world.

The quotes Gold references from reputable sources are taken out of context or reflect earlier views, now scientifically repudiated. No sane doctor or medical student would waste five minutes on the journals or papers she uses to justify her flawed agenda. Simply put, Dr. Simone Gold and her band of merry co-conspirators are trying to pull the wool over your eyes for personal financial gain. She is trying to mislead you and is, in effect, threatening your life and the lives of others.

To clarify just how radical her medical views are, let’s take an excerpt from one of her websites, where she responds to a comment on an article she wrote on maks.

then, given these big neocons’ vaccination programs intentionally spreading sterility (as well as thimerosol-caused autism, & even the very diseases being vaccinated against, esp. measles & polio);

Perhaps, Ms. Gold, you would care to explain why that anti-vaccine stance doesn’t quite gel with your comments on your petition website. Here they are, in case you’ve forgotten making them.

SMD & AFLDS is NOT “anti-vaxx” or in any other form to be considered or mislabeled as disapproving of established, reputable vaccines when taken voluntarily without coercion. 

Gold first rose to notoriety when she appeared in a viral video touting hydroxychloroquine back in July of 2020. She was accompanied by Stella Immanuel, MD (we exposed Immanuel’s quackery/witchcraft here), James Todaro, MD, Bob Hamilton, MD,Dan Erickson, DO, Richard Urso, MD and Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD.

In a later article from the Washington Spectator exposing more lies about the media face of Simone Gold and the Republican-backed politics and people enabling her, Emergency physician Nick Sawyer, disturbed by the implications for medical practitioners that Gold and the AFLD poses, had this to say.

The America’s Frontline Doctors campaign, he says, “violates two of the primary principles of medical ethics. Medical ethics has four major principles: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. As hydroxychloroquine offers no clinical benefit and may be harmful, it violates the first two tenets. Further, their statements place actual frontline physicians treating patients with Covid-19 in conflict with patients’ right to autonomy.

To have Simone Gold’s medical license investigated, you will need to place a formal complaint with California’s medical licensing authority. This link will take you directly to the Califonia Medical Board’s page for filing a complaint online. Gold is not acting in the interest of public health and her outspoken views and advice on the coronavirus, masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and the covid vaccine are not in keeping with her profession’s very clear overriding mandate – First do no harm.

Report Gold and America’s Frontline Doctors directly to the Department of Justice by following this link. The page contains information and telephone numbers or you can call directly on COVID-19 Fraud Hotline: 1-888-C19-WDPA.

Here is information on the other medical voices that have lent support to Gold and enabled her reach online and on Social Media. They are, in Medika’s opinion, incidental and Gold is the driving force behind AFLD.

James Todaro, MD

Todaro, an ophthalmologist based in Michigan who is no longer practicing, graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2014. His medical license, which was classified as “educational limited” in Michigan, expired in 2019. According to his LinkedIn profile, Todaro has not practiced medicine since 2018. He co-founded an investment fund called Blocktown Capital.

Bob Hamilton, MD

Hamilton, a pediatrician and school liaison with America’s Frontline Doctors, has been practicing in Santa Monica, California — home to his private practice, Pacific Ocean Pediatrics — for more than 30 years. He has hospital privileges at Providence-St. John’s Health Center and the UCLA-Santa Monica Medical Center. He has been vocal in suggesting schools re-open, citing no risk to children from Covid-19

Dan Erickson, DO

Erickson is the co-owner of Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, California. He is a former emergency physician, according to reports, who was featured on national television in late April after he claimed data his center had collected showed that COVID was more widespread and less harmful than reported in medical journals.

The American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Emergency Medicine issued a joint statement condemning Erickson’s claims, calling them “reckless and untested musings” that are “inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19.”

Richard Urso, MD

Urso is an ophthalmologist at Houston Eye Associates in Bellaire, Texas, who has been touting HCQ for COVID-19. He told Fox News host Laura Ingraham earlier this month that he has been working with the drug for 30 years and has never had a patient with a heart issue.

He also said during that interview that HCQ was “safer than Tylenol, aspirin, Motrin.” In 2003, Urso paid a $1,500 fine to resolve allegations that he didn’t provide a narrative of medical records to an attorney for a patient’s personal injury lawsuit.

Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD

Ladapo is a physician and health policy researcher at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, according to his UCLA profile. His primary research interests include diagnostic technology cost-effectiveness and decreasing cardiovascular disease population burden. He is also an adjunct professor of population health at New York University-Langone, a spokesperson confirmed and sees patients at Langone Medical Center.

He has cared for COVID patients at UCLA, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial in early April, though that could not be confirmed (a UCLA Medicine spokesperson declined to answer questions and said Ladapo declined to comment). On the Supreme Court steps, he said nothing about treating COVID-19 patients himself.

Simone Gold, MD, images are all used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, and increase public health knowledge.

Still don’t get it?

If you still don’t believe that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are sold to you as part of an elaborate medical scam. please read this article on why we just can’t say at this point which treatments are actually useful in reducing deaths.

The post Exposing America’s Frontline Doctors and Their Financial Empire Built on Hydroxychloroquine appeared first on Medika Life.

If you’re not sure how our Quack Scale works, click here for a detailed explanation

Qualification: Medical, Osteopathic, or Podiatric School, University Of Colorado Health Sciences Center School Of Medicine – Denver CO. Graduated: 2002. Internal Medicine,MD – Charlottesville, VA USA, Residency Completed: 2005. Bush is currently certified in only one discipline, that of Internal Medicine: Hospice & Palliative Medicine.

Current Licensing Status: Licenced to practice in Virginia by the Virginia Medical Board, License# 0101239018. You can check his current status here

Resident: Charlottesville , VA

Existing Complaints: None listed in a professional capacity.

Website: zachbushmd.com, intrinsichealthseries.com, farmersfootprint.us, ionbiome.com, themclinic.com

What happens when you cross alt-Health, traditional medicine, Deepak, and Yoda? You end up with someone like Zach Bush, MD. He is the poster boy for Predatory Health and with a string of medical qualifications behind him and a very carefully managed public profile,

Bush appears at first glance to be squeaky clean, a real medical messiah, but looks can, as we all know, be deceptive. Dig a little deeper and the real picture behind a slick, well oiled, and carefully orchestrated marketing machine emerges. One designed with a singular purpose. To enrich Zach Bush.

His website offers little gems of new-age “Deepak Chopra like nonsense-statements”, pseudoscience mixed in with traditional medicine, and his range of natural (of course) products and alternate therapies. The lines below are taken directly from his site on a page where he discusses Covid’s impact on the world.

May this respiratory virus that now shares space and time with us teach us of the grave mistakes we have made in disconnecting from our nature and warring against the foundation of the microbiome. If we choose to learn from, rather than fear, this virus, it can reveal the source of our chronic disease epidemics that are the real threat to our species.

The page also just happens to feature a range of cleverly identified products designed to boost your immune system. The insinuation is clear. Covid is a virus-like influenza and these products will help you combat it. Here is how he phrases the sales pitch.

 I’ve included below a series of Lifestyle Cornerstones to integrate into your everyday practices, particularly during respiratory risk seasons, as well as the regimen that I recommend for those feeling the need for more health resources during this time.

Bush has become prominent in Autism circles, touting his theories of gut health as the root cause of autism and offering his products as a treatment. Although the idea of the gut’s involvement in autism is under serious investigation there is, as yet no hard scientific evidence to validate his claims. Bush possesses none or he would most definitely be sharing it. At the Autism One conference in Chicago in 2016, Bush made this statement;

Bush explained, using slides of the gut viewed through a microscope as visual aids, how his plant-derived mineral supplement, RESTORE ($49.95 for a one-month supply), strengthens cell membranes in the gut to keep toxins from leaking out. Bush told the parents in the audience that he was “excited to just be a piece of your puzzle” in the parents’ quest to “rebirth that child into a state of health.” 

Bush isn’t the only doctor that’s cashing in on the gullibility of the public and their desire for new-age hocus pocus, but he is by far the slickest. It’s what makes him so appealing, so believable and so dangerous. He is well aware of where the line is, drawn by the FDA in shifting sand, and he ensures he doesn’t step over it. He now regularly shares platforms with proponents of Covid conspiracies and his views on the coronavirus are dangerous.

Bush’s video interviews on Covid, featured on LondonReal, are accompanied by trailers of the movie Plandemic, a falsified load of pseudoscience and nonsense that is now banned from numerous platforms. These associations confirm his position as quackery’s new poster boy. If you’ve got the money, Zach Bush has the answers. Look deep into his eyes and suspend belief.

Let’s examine the claims published on his website about autism. The following quote is lifted directly from his site’s page on the topic.

Autism spectrum disorder has risen in prevalence from 1 in 5000 children in 1975 to 1 in 36 children in 2016, and the rate has been doubling every 3-4 years in the last decade in the US.

And the rate has been doubling every 3-4 years in the last decade in the US. We are on target to experience 1 in 3 children with Autism by 2035, just 16 years away

Complete and utter lies and fabrication, designed to instill fear in you and make you want the solutions and products he sells. It’s textbook deception, practiced by quacks and charlatans across the globe. I hereby issue a direct challenge to Bush to produce statistical data to verify this claim. He cannot.

The only reason there has been an increase in autism diagnosis over the last few years (and Bush is well aware of this) is that guidelines for diagnosing the condition were relaxed. Resultantly, many more people were reclassified as having autism. Deception, misdirection, and lies. Which cup is the ball in! Here’s a screenshot, just in case the page is whitewashed.

Zach Bush uses a mix of science, pseudoscience, and untruths (lies) couched in new age terminology to fool his victims into purchasing his products and seminars. He is a health predator, no matter how you dress him up, and he is an embarrassment to traditional medicine and the healthcare profession in general.

If you have a serious medical condition or are feeling unwell, you need to seek advice from reputable and established practitioners of evidence-based medicine. There is no harm in seeking alternate treatments to supplement a medical regime of treatments if this is done in careful conjunction, and with the knowledge of, your healthcare provider. In and of their own, alternate treatments aren’t going to cure you, and believing they will, can cost you your life.

Supporting Articles

Articles critical of Bush are hard to come by, buried below his domination of Google searches on the topic of, well, Zach Bush. His newly employed marketing agents (2019) have done him proud. It is also a clear indication of how alt-Health now dominates Google’s pages and how simple it is to manipulate appearances. You simply flood the market with new articles.

Publication – C-Ville: Author Melissa Angell, on June 28, 2016. Missing doctors: Patient seeks records after clinic closes Verdict: The caption on the photo gives an indication of how long Bush has been at his game, and how he has refined his earlier techniques.

Dr. Zachary Bush, right, opened alternative clinic Revolution Health Center in Scottsville. Dr. Martin Katz was a partner there, and both told their patients: “You have the power to heal yourself.”

John Robinson

Publication – Provocative Change Works: Author Nick Kemp, July 29, 2020. Open letter to Michael Hall by Richard Bolstad. Verdict: Bush is a quack, uttering pseudoscientific nonsense.

this stuff by Zach Bush is just wacky.“Bush ruined what could have been an interesting talk when he said that microRNA can be transmitted by breathing. He claimed that you can literally go to the gym, do nothing except breathe in the microRNA that others exhale, and benefit because your cells think they worked out. And, in case that wasn’t enough of a stretch, he described how consuming microRNA from “bored” corn grown in a field with “tens of thousands of corn plants” makes us afraid of diversity and directly contributes to racism and mass shootings.”

Publication – Chad Hayes MD: Author Chad Hayes on March 4, 2017. Citations Needed: The curious “science” of integrative medicine. Verdict: A clinical dissection of the rubbish Bush spews by a medical doctor who practices pediatrics. An excellent article well worth reading and many of the other charlatans we highlight are included in this breakdown of a Conference Hayes attended called, “Get Your Life Back NOW!” held in Orlando, FL in 2017, at which Bush spoke.

In addition to poorly executed science, there were a lot of “facts” tossed out at the conference that left me wondering if the speakers were being intentionally dishonest, or if they were just really, really wrong. Chief among these offenders was Zach Bush, MD, who runs the M Clinic and “Intrinsic Health” center in Charlottesville, VA and sells the RESTORE line of supplements.

Bush, who seems to have some difficulty understanding basic concepts of genetics and mathematics, informed the audience that “genetically speaking, humans are pathetically simple.” His rationale for this was that humans have 20,000 genes, while fungi have 2 trillion. I’ll admit my initial ignorance; although 2 trillion seemed high, I didn’t really know how many genes fungi have. But it wasn’t hard to look up. Gene sequencing reveals that fungal genomes are similar in size to our own, at around 10,000-25,000 genes. But what are eight orders of magnitude among friends? Actual numbers aside, Bush further argued that “if microorganisms were the enemy, we’d be dead.” Which of course, many of our species are, having been unable to overcome infections from a dazzling array of microorganisms.

He then told us how amazing it is that the DNA repair enzyme “travels near the speed of light.” Unfortunately, this is even less true. DNA polymerases responsible for DNA repair travel along DNA strands at approximately 10-20 nucleotides per second, each of which is approximately 0.6 nanometers in length. Being as generous as I can, that comes out to 12 nanometers/second. And in that same second, a photon of light travels 300 million meters, or 25,000,000,000,000,000 times farther than the DNA repair enzyme.

Further revealing his ignorance about genetics, Bush informed us that while “scientists call 99% of DNA ‘junk,’” that simply can’t be correct because “there’s no waste in nature.” Bush asserts that what geneticists refer to as “junk DNA” actually codes for microRNA, small strands of RNA that regulate how our genes are expressed. While microRNA does actually exist, and the roles it plays are fascinating, it makes up a relatively small percentage of our genetic code, about 1-5%.

But then, Bush ruined what could have been an interesting talk when he said that microRNA can be transmitted by breathing. He claimed that you can literally go to the gym, do nothing except breathe in the microRNA that others exhale, and benefit because your cells think they worked out. And, in case that wasn’t enough of a stretch, he described how consuming microRNA from “bored” corn grown in a field with “tens of thousands of corn plants” makes us afraid of diversity and directly contributes to racism and mass shootings.

Publication – Fueled by Science: Author Chana Davis, PhD, 2019. Dear Scientific American. Vegetables are Not Toxic. Down with Fake News. Verdict: A damning condemnation of yet more pseudoscience Bush managed to get published in Scientific American. Bush was asked to redraft the article after this complaint. The original still stands and you can compare the misleading statements Bush presents as fact.

Rather than sticking to legitimate scientific sources (e.g. peer-reviewed scientific publications and meta-analyses by national organizations) the authors turn to a food author, a health product pushing salesman (Dr. Zach Bush) and pseudoscience haven Planetary Health (check it out if you want a smoothie that can cure Ebola!).

Zach Bush, MD, images are all used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, and increase public health knowledge.

The post Zach Bush, MD on Medika’s Quack Scale appeared first on Medika Life.

What is the Predatory Health (PH) sector 

This broad term, which Medika has coined for convenience, encompasses practitioners from almost all the fields of healthcare and includes the complimentary and alternate health (alt-Health) sectors,

For clarification, the alt-Health sector we refer to includes Complimentary and Alternate Health (CAM) – which includes fields like homeopathy and chiropractic – and is far less strictly regulated. The same is true of the other included sectors under this heading, including but not limited to, the natural products and supplement market, new age life coaches, and the grey area of unregulated health (medical) devices. 

The alt-Health sector tends to far more representative of Predatory Health practices. Traditional medicine is broadly regulated and therefore less susceptible to the quackery of PH, but by no means immune to its perpetrators.

Predatory Health practitioners gravitate towards the alt-Health sector, attracted by lax regulation and the vast legally grey areas that allow them to operate and ply their wares almost with impunity. 

The more outlandish and non-traditional the peddled cure or treatment becomes, the more likely the PH practitioner is to gravitate away from traditional medicine by embracing these fields, where their cohort welcomes them with open arms. 

What does a Predatory Health practitioner sell?

Their main product is intangible. They are selling hope, albeit false, something terminal patients and those afflicted with conditions like chronic pain are desperate for. These patients cling to the hope of finding some relief or miracle cure and the predatory health market preys on this. Below is a non-exhaustive list of the typical markets (marks) and strategies these individuals exploit with their health cons.

• Offering miracle cures, treatments, and relief to the terminally ill. Cancer patients are a favored target, but any deadly disease offers these quacks the opportunity to peddle their dangerous and untested wares.
• If you or your child suffers from conditions like autism, you are a primary target. Support groups, especially closed groups on Telegram, Facebook, and other social media groups offer these practitioners the opportunity to exploit you in relative safety. Be wary of any individuals offering treatments for conditions that do not have known medical remedy.
• Chronic pain sufferers are a massive target for Predatory Health. They have an unlimited number of relatively safe, but ineffective treatments and natural products they can peddle to you. It isn’t in their interest to kill their cash cow, but there are unscrupulous merchants who will offer you products that are known to be very dangerous and sometimes fatal
• Obesity, eczema, high blood pressure, influenza, and covid. The list is endless as are the techniques and strategies these unscrupulous merchants will engage to appear legitimate.
• Mental Health is also catered for with New Age life courses offering all sorts of benefits from attending costly online seminars and retreats. It is hocus pocus and has no foundation in solid science. None of these things will cure your chronic pain, cancers, or autism.
• Machines claiming to offer some sort of medical benefit, some working on sound, some using vibration, and others still, claiming amazing unvalidated results and health benefits. Never, ever take endorsements at face value. If these devices actually worked, don’t you think your doctors would be using them?
• The exploitation of misguided activist groups like anti-vaxers to further promote their sales. More damage is done to the cause of vaccines by these individuals than any other group combined. It serves the interests of Predotory Health to promote distrust in traditional medicine.

False Prophets and Fake Prophets

There is a distinction between the two and in the examples and names I will highlight below, most occupy one camp or the other. 

False prophets are usually doctors and medically trained individuals who, for unknown reasons, have latched onto treatments that are not evidence-based and they believe, without conclusive medical evidence to support their beliefs, in the safety and efficacy of the treatments they peddle. 

Belief is a dangerous drug and the sustenance of religion. It has no place in evidence-based medicine. 

Fake prophets, on the other hand, are under no such illusions. They know full well the potential dangers and risks of the products or treatments they peddle. They are highly skilled at manipulating marketing channels to ensure they reach their potential ‘marks’ and will often possess no formal medical training. 

Both are equally dangerous. The fake prophets are usually limited to the alt-Health markets and prefer this environment as it allows for greater freedom to ply their deadly wares. 

It is important to note that sales may not be the only motivating factor that drives certain Predatory Health practitioners. It can simply be a desire to spread disinformation, or, as they may see it, deeply insightful information they have come upon. These are possibly the most disruptive and dangerous voices from within the Predatory Health sector as they enable and empower the real charlatans by creating doubt in people’s minds. 

Take for instance Dr Christiane Northrup, whose divergence from a reasonably distinguished medical career in women’s health has been abrupt and complete. Her adoption of conspiracy theories, 5G cell towers, microchips in vaccines, and other nonsensical rantings on YouTube and social media beggars belief.

Whatever her motivation, this doctor enjoys a broad following on social media, and her voice has impact. I have no doubt whatsoever that her rantings will result in eventual deaths. People avoiding the Covid vaccine because of baseless lies, people not inoculating their children, and an avoidance of traditional medicine because of the distrust she sows. She epitomizes the False Prophet. 

Meet the Predatory Health Practitioners

The names below are linked to Medika’s Quack Scale, a tool designed to enable the public to identify quacks and charlatans operating in the Predatory Health sector. 

The other end of the scale (Fake Prophets) is occupied by individuals like Dr Fitt, a marketing pseudonym for a disgraced doctor, Roby Mitchell, who now peddles bleach treatments and enemas to autistic children from his base in Texas. Purely driven by financial gain, Mitchell ranks among the bottom feeders in the world of predatory health. 

Dr. Kerri Rivera is another example of a doctor gone bad. Her exploitation of vulnerable mental health patients for profit is well documented and her association with Sayer Ji, an alt-Health proponent who used to sell health foods, has resulted in them spewing a sea of misinformation on Covid and other medical topics. Once again, their motivation is the sale of their products and treatments ay any cost

Kelly Brogan, Joseph Mercola, Zach Bush, the list is as endless as it is dangerous and the reason it grows daily is simply this. Money. There are fortunes to be made in the alt-Health sector, particularly if you claim to have the “cure for Covid” marketed of course as a drug or treatment to boost your immune system against influenza viruses. The FDA might be watching.

Millions of dollars change hands daily, paid over freely by those duped into believing the lies. Often, customers also pay with their lives. 

The individuals who engage in Predatory Health are willing to risk being caught. The system grinds slowly and by the time the FDA catches up with them, the damage is already done. Their message is out there and they simply move the supply of their “toxins” to less mainstream channels. Loopholes and blindspots in current U.S legislation leave room enough to drive buses through. The system offers little more negligible punitive fines and smacks on the wrist, which are not a deterrent.

This is the nature of predatory health and it isn’t always easy to spot. Particularly if your desperation and need for relief or hope outweigh your common sense.

Buying from a “large” business isn’t always a guarantee of safety either. Take the following company Phoenix Biotechnology, whose aggressive marketing campaign to sell a “natural extract” called Oleander 4x is a textbook case of manipulating the health market to promote sales of a product that can potentially cause death. 

Through the misrepresentation and manipulation of clinical studies, they have produced the illusion of medical acceptance and the latest FDA warning issued against them for offering their toxin as a treatment for Covid has exposed the true nature of their business. 

Many other similar companies operate below the radar for years in relative safety, selling and enabling Predatory Health practitioners by making their fake treatments and products available to a global market. 

It is a monumental problem that the healthcare industry and the American government can no longer afford to ignore. Every Predatory Health practitioner we allow to operate, particularly those who still have a foot firmly placed in traditional medicine, bring disrepute to the industry. 

They encourage mistrust of conventional treatments to the detriment of many critically-ill people. The formally qualified quacks breach the oath they have taken and a legal option must be explored to permanently strip them of their qualifications and the right to their use.

Many of these individuals took an oath and their actions are a clear breach of this oath, thereby rendering the conditions of the degree null and void. Simply removing their right to practice is an insufficient response and continues to endanger public health. Where clear intent to harm and deceive is established, the full force of the law should be brought to bear on these quacks.

Legislation enabling medical boards to act more aggressively against medical professionals in the predatory health sector is desperately needed on a federal level. It is in the interests of public safety and in the continued interests of maintaining credulity in existing public healthcare institutions.

Dealing with alt-Health

Policing the alt-Health sector requires an entirely different approach which may include clear legal guidelines of operation, enforceable by institutions like the FDA. This is simply one mechanism though, and the problem will require a multi-faceted approach. 

What compounds the complexity of the problem is the alt-Health sector itself. There are definite and real health benefits to certain treatments and therapies offered by the sector. Recognizing, regulating, and protecting these practitioners, products, and therapies will be critical to the future of this market. An excellent example of how a legitimate profession can be ruined by its association with predatory health is the Chiropractic industry.

Left unchecked, the alternative will be an eventual wholesale ban on many potentially helpful drugs, therapies, and products. This would be a knee-jerk response, an oversimplified solution to a complex problem and needs to be avoided at all costs. Sadly, all too often, this type of exaggerated response is typical of politicians who lack a clear grasp of an industry’s dynamics and are looking to simply exercise damage control.

There has been little effort shown by the alt-Health sector to police themselves and whatever results now from the proliferation of fraudsters within their sector, they will share blame in the outcomes. 

If you’ve been affected by Predatory Health practitioners what can you do to stop others falling victim?

Stop enabling Predatory Health Practioners

Every time you come across these individuals and you paths will cross, perhaps frequently, as they proliferate on social media, call them out, unfollow them, report them, block them. 

Their current success is largely attributable to the internet and their mastery of social media as a sales and marketing tool. The privacy of private groups on Facebook and other platforms allows them to operate with impunity, away from prying eyes. 

They are usually only exposed when tragedy occurs, when someone dies from the poisons they peddle and that death is often a child. You can help by exposing them before this happens. 

Websites like Medika Life and others offer pages that highlight the unethical and dangerous practices of these doctors. We also offer a page where the public can confidentially bring names to our attention. You can also report the professionally registered quacks to the relevant boards within their states or directly to the FDA if medication is involved. 

Reporting accounts to the social media platforms is often futile as they are slow to respond, if ever, particularly if groups are closed. Take screenshots of offending materials and include these in a report to the websites listed below. 

Your actions are essential to saving lives and stopping the spread of the rot of predatory health within our communities. By using your voice, you can join a growing community of people speaking out against disinformation. You will not be alone and somewhere on the planet, a child may owe you their life. 

You can also sign a MOBILIZE™ Health petition if you would like to add your voice to a campaign to rid the industry of this blight by creating a formal watchdog, an Organization tasked with and legally enabled to, root out health fraud and the dangerous practices of predatory health practitioners. 

Help us to help protect the most vulnerable sectors of our communities. 

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