By ADAM GATTUSO
December 22, MMXX
THE NUCLEAR OPTION
Chapters
Introduction
A new hope to defeat coronavirus is at our door, and it’s been standing there the whole time. Existing plant‑based medicines with millennia of use and decades of scientific studies behind them have been tested and deployed against the 2019 coronavirus disease.
Conventional medicine has transformed the world for the past 100 years, enabling countless additional years of human life. Yet in the current virus crisis, the conventional Western medical field—based on pharmaceutical drugs alone—has a feebly inept arsenal. A year is considered lightning‑fast in the realm of drug discovery and vaccine generation. If we are not content to remain imprisoned in a post‑apocalyptic hell waiting around for a safe, working vaccine to become readily available, then we need all options on the table right now.
For decades, many conventionally‑trained scientists and doctors have pretentiously sneered down upon natural medicine, dismissing, ignoring, or suppressing the wealth of scientific research behind the antimicrobial and therapeutic actions of plants, which often backs up historical usage. Yet, more than 120 common drugs—including aspirin, the strong anti‑cancer drug taxol, and yes, cannabidiol—originally came from plants.
The coronavirus pandemic has shown us that man hasn’t tamed nature just yet. The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus that causes the 2019 coronavirus disease, covid-19, emerged only months ago to wage its global attack on the human race. Could Nature already contain weapons we can use to fortify ourselves and crush this thing? Does China know something we don’t?
Into the Amazon
Deep in the vast Amazon rainforest, the density of different plant species is overwhelming. Stout pau d’arco trees stand five stories tall into the shady canopy, surrounded from top to bottom with terraria of growth. “You can breathe better there,” said Leslie Taylor, a retired naturopathic doctor who has studied the medicinal properties of rainforest plants for decades. The place pulsates with life. Here the search begins.
In seeking to alleviate our thirst for health, we don’t have to walk far. We’ll start with the biggest, baddest plant around. Pau d’arco (pronounced Pow darko) means “bow stem” in Portuguese and bears the Latin scientific name Tabebuia impetiginosa. Indigenous people use the inner bark of this massive tree to make shooting bows because of its strong resistance to rot—which provides a clue to its antimicrobial properties. Its rot resistance probably gave ancient South Americans a clue too, since archeological evidence shows that they have used pau d’arco for medicine since pre-Inca times. A 2013 review paper by scientists from the Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira in Colombia highlighted 36 experiments showing that pau d’arco kills a wide variety of pathogenic microbes. For example, pau d’arco contains compounds that pierce through Helicobacter pylori, a “superbug” bacteria that damages the human digestive system and has been gaining resistance against prescription antibiotics. Pau d’arco has also killed multiple human viruses including HIV, in research from Harvard Medical School in 1993.
Plants have evolved antimicrobial compounds as a defense mechanism after being bombarded with pathogens and pests over millions of years in biologically diverse ecosystems. The nutrient-rich Amazon has greater biodiversity than anywhere else on Earth, which includes an enormous number of microbial species. Ms. Taylor explained that plant defense mechanisms can contain more than a hundred active compounds whose therapeutic actions are synergistic, which is why herbal medicines often have superior efficacy than single-chemical drugs. Numerous compounds in a plant could thwart a particular pathogen. “A virus can’t mutate fast enough to create a defense mechanism against eleven chemicals simultaneously,” she said.
Scientific analysis shows that the inner bark of pau d’arco trees contains an arsenal of compounds called quinones that fight infections. Just as animals and plants are classified in taxonomies, plant compounds are organized into classes with names such as flavonoids, polyphenols, lignans, and quinones. A subcategory of quinones called naphthoquinones shows significant action against bacteria, viruses, and insects, and they reduce fever and inflammation in people. Scientists have found naphthoquinones in plants used traditionally for medicinal purposes on multiple continents, including at least seven naphthoquinones in pau d’arco. A 1983 Brazilian study showed that one of the most studied of pau d’arco’s naphthoquinone compounds, lapachol, significantly blocked several different viruses from reproducing, including four strains of influenza. Of course, pau d’arco has yet to be tested against the newly emerged coronavirus. But the coronavirus hasn’t been tested against pau d’arco either, and pau d’arco has been assassinating pathogens for millions of years. Doctors have advised against taking more than 1.5 grams of this bark at a time; the recommended dose on most pau d’arco pill bottles is about 1 gram.
As impressive as pau d’arco is on paper, the abundant Amazon might contain another plant with even more promise. To look for it along the path, we heighten our senses, zooming in at all the layers of our surroundings, when lo! it appears in front of us. Chanca piedra, Phyllanthus niruri, is a small herb with pinnately compound leaves. It’s also the first plant that Ms. Taylor would take in case of covid-19. “Researchers have confirmed the presence of at least eight natural plant chemicals with antiviral actions in the plant,” Ms. Taylor wrote in a new book on chanca piedra, part of her Rainforest Medicinal Plant Guide Series. Chanca piedra, Spanish for “stone breaker,” is so named for its traditional use to break apart kidney stones. Phyllanthus species from South America, India, and Southeast Asia have a wide range of historical uses, treating influenza, asthma, diabetes, skin ulcers, hepatitis B, liver tumors, and bladder infections.
Numerous scientists have gathered data on chanca piedra. A 2006 review by Malaysian biomedical researchers documented several classes of compounds in chanca piedra with antioxidant, anti‑inflammatory, capillary‑strengthening, and anti‑microbial properties. A 2012 laboratory study found that factoring in safety, P. niruri was the most potent inactivator of herpes simplex virus of the 27 South American plants tested. Multiple studies have found that chanca piedra fights HIV by inhibiting its reverse transcriptase enzyme, and in fact, in 1996, a pharmaceutical research institute even isolated the compound niruriside from P. niruri leaf for this reason.
While pau d’arco’s evidence comes mainly from traditional experience and laboratory studies, chanca piedra has also been put to test in a variety of human clinical trials. These tests established chanca piedra’s safety, with no side effects ever reported. Clinical trials have shown that chanca piedra fights hepatitis B comparable to conventional treatments, and that the herb fights tuberculosis by increasing production of the immune system’s bacteria-devouring interferon-γ protein. Chanca piedra’s stone-breaking prowess has been confirmed in a Brazilian study showing that it strongly inhibits the growth of kidney stones in rats. Multiple studies, including recent trials in Romania and Brazil, show that it can break apart small stones in humans.
Our ability to buy pills, teas, and extracts containing these efficacious plants is not to be taken for granted. Since the 1920s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration—the FDA—has exercised fluctuating levels of control over the sale, labeling, and advertising of packaged vitamins, herbs, and other natural products, sometimes constrained by Congress or the Courts. In 1990, before rainforest herbs were sold in the United States, the FDA became increasingly hostile towards natural health products. Emboldened by the newly passed Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, the FDA purported that any health claim for a natural health product made such product an “unlicensed drug,” thereby preventing manufacturers from advertising their products’ benefits. “The FDA is pretty much run by the drug companies,” Ms. Taylor said. In 1992, the Prescription Drug User Fee Act began a system in which drug companies pay exorbitant fees to the FDA to fund the review and approval process for new drugs, a system that continues to this day. Then in 1993, the FDA decreed that all products containing herbs, amino acids, and anything else natural—except for vitamins or minerals—were unapproved “food additives” and tried to ban their sale entirely. By this time, the FDA had already started raiding natural health clinics. The FDA was out of control, and Americans were in danger of losing access to plant-derived products they had taken to support their health for years.
A grassroots movement arose to save natural health. Congress listened and recognized that the people wanted increased access both to the products and to health information. In October 1994, Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, DSHEA for short. It protected the sale of natural health products under the new category of “dietary supplements,” and allowed companies to make health claims within certain bounds. The FDA could step in if any product was found to be unsafe. It was a victory for American enterprise, speech, and health choice, for the time being.
Ms. Taylor, like so many others, turned to plants for healing after the conventional medical system had nothing left for her except to watch her die. Curing her cancer with herbal medicine and nutrition led her to her profession, and after a trip to the Amazon to study cat’s claw, she became enchanted with the place. Ms. Taylor started her own company selling rainforest herbal supplements in 1995. She managed every stage of the process from rainforest to consumer. She befriended locals including indigenous people, learning their languages and mutually sharing medicinal knowledge. She was able to convince the locals that the sustainable harvesting of rainforest plants would make them more money per acre than clearcutting it for timber. She personally trained the local employees in best practices for quality harvesting, cleaning, processing, and transporting of the herbs. She built a large end-to-end operation, and introduced the U.S. market to dozens of rainforest medicinal plants. She built a robust plant database on her website, rain-tree.com, to share insights about the scientific research and traditional uses of these plants.
In the beginning, DSHEA allowed merchants to cite scientific studies and traditional use of their products for specific conditions of disease. “As long as it wasn’t false, misleading, or incomplete, you could refer to studies all day long,” Ms. Taylor said. This window of relatively open speech on natural health wouldn’t last, however. The rise of the internet gave companies a new way to disseminate information, but also made it much easier for the FDA to monitor. The FDA began enacting regulations over top of DSHEA. “Every year, they passed regulations that stripped away the provisions voted upon by Congress,” Ms. Taylor said. Some sued, and the FDA lost again and again. But the FDA interpreted those rulings narrowly, applying them only to the specific scenarios of each case. By 1999, one-third of DSHEA had been effectively repealed. Now, 26 years later, Ms. Taylor assessed that the FDA has repealed 90 percent of DSHEA.
As the FDA continued to tighten its noose around free speech, dietary supplement sellers adjusted accordingly. Ms. Taylor had been updating her website to comply with the increasing regulations, but the knowledge she was disseminating was still too much for the pharmaceutical interests to bear. Hundreds of thousands of people per month were learning about rainforest plants through her database. So in 2012, the FDA accused her of terrorism by importing “unsafe foods” into the United States. They froze her imports. They told her attorney that she had to “make her website go away” before releasing the charges. Ms. Taylor had a decision to make. She chose to close her business in order to keep providing information about plant-based medicine to the people. She had already succeeded in building the market for rainforest herbs in the United States, and was able to transfer her employees along the supply chain to another company so that the plants could continue to be responsibly harvested and sold.
It Works Like Soap
Virgin coconuts are smooth green orbs picked fresh off palms of the tropics. Decades of research has shown that the oil extracted from these coconuts melts bacteria and viruses. Coconut oil is 50 percent lauric acid; upon eating coconut oil, human enzymes convert lauric acid into monolaurin. Lauric acid and monolaurin have been found numerous times to be virucidal. In reviewing the experiments, researchers have proposed three ways in which lauric acid and monolaurin attack and disable viruses: They disintegrate the virus’ outer membranes, block key mechanisms that viruses need to replicate, and prevent the binding of the viral proteins to the host cell membrane. In simpler language, as Dr. Fabian Dayit—Vice President of the Philippines’ National Academy of Science and Technology—said to ABS-CBN News, “It works like soap.”
The most relevant study for our purposes was published in 1982 by a virologist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and a pharmacologist from Michigan State University. Tests in cell culture found that monolaurin killed more than 99.9 percent of all 14 viruses they tested. When monolaurin was mixed 50–50 with sorbic acid, a common food preservative originally found in unripe rowan berries, 12 viruses were wiped out entirely, including influenza and an avian strain of coronavirus.
That’s right: Coconut oil killed a coronavirus and the CDC did the study. The researchers used electron micrographs to discern that the monolaurin mixture killed the viruses by disintegrating their outer envelopes. Capric acid, another coconut oil compound, also has strong antiviral properties. A 2007 study in Iceland showed that monocaprin—capric acid’s derivative—kills three different human viruses, including influenza, even at low concentrations.
Coconut palms are not the only life forms that make lauric and capric acid to protect their offspring against pathogens. We do too. Breastfeeding women naturally manufacture both compounds, which biologists believe shields babies’ stomachs from harmful bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa infection. They may also protect babies’ sprouting teeth from cavities and plaque.
Based on this wealth of information, Dr. Dayit and Dr. Mary Newport, a U.S. neonatologist, published a research proposal on January 31 for clinical testing of virgin coconut oil on covid-19 patients. They highlighted coconut oil’s safety, affordability, and availability. The Philippines’ government acted on the proposal and is currently overseeing three clinical trials, providing unheated virgin coconut oil to covid-19 patients with their meals. One study, which was announced in March, is being conducted through the National University of Singapore. Two additional studies initiated in April, one at a major hospital in Manila and the other at communities and hospitals in metropolitan Manila and other regions.
On July 21, initial results were reported by a hospital in Cebu City: None of the 69 covid-positive patients who received coconut oil ever progressed to either moderate or severe disease. Additional results are rolling in, solidifying coconut oil’s efficacy against covid-19. In a double-blind study in Santa Rosa, Laguna, coconut oil significantly sped up recovery time from symptoms, a finding backed up by the patients’ C‑reactive protein levels.
As with any antibiotic, eating large servings of coconut oil for extended periods could kill some of the good bacteria that lives in our intestines and helps to digest food, causing digestive discomfort. On the other hand, bad bacteria may also be killed. Taking probiotics can mitigate potential digestive symptoms from antimicrobial products. Emerging research suggests that for longterm digestive recovery after an antibiotic regimen, eating prebiotic foods with fiber and resistant starches may be more effective than many currently available probiotic supplements to stimulate regrowth of the body’s natural gut microflora.
A Disinfectant You Can Eat
Like America, the grapefruit is a genetic hybrid. Grapefruits were first discovered in Barbados citrus groves in 1750. Nearby sweet orange and pomelo trees, both imported from Asia, had crossed naturally. In the 1960s, Dr. Jacob Harich, a physicist and immunologist, noticed something in the compost bin in his Florida backyard: Grapefruit seeds were very slow to decompose. Grapefruit seed extract was born, and has been used by naturopathic practitioners in North America and worldwide ever since. They are sold as tablets or liquid concentrate to be diluted in water. Grapefruit products are known to interact with a number of prescription drugs by inhibiting the breakdown of these drugs in the body, which could cause side effects. This interaction illustrates the importance for people on prescription drugs to check with their doctor or healthcare professional before adding a new supplement.
Grapefruit seed extract abounds in flavonoids and other polyphenols. All citrus fruits contain such compounds, but they are most concentrated in grapefruit seeds. The polyphenol naringin, which comprises the bitter component of grapefruit’s taste, is a strong antioxidant that protected the livers and intestines of mice from radiation damage in a 2005 Indian study. Grapefruit seed extract has also protected rats from stomach damage by stimulating production of protective mucous on the stomach wall.
Research has also shown grapefruit seed extract to be a potent antiseptic against viruses, bacteria, and fungi. A 2002 study found that it kills 67 types of bacteria on direct contact. In 2019, scientists from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology tested grapefruit seed extract solution sprayed directly onto avian pathogens. The solution displayed “high virucidal and bactericidal effect” within 5 seconds. The grapefruit seed extract killed two out of three viruses tested—avian influenza and Newcastle disease virus, both of which are enveloped like coronaviruses. In the past, some commercial grapefruit seed extract was found to contain the preservative benzalkonium chloride, which caused the product’s efficacy to be questioned. The Tokyo researchers specifically controlled for the trace presence of benzalkonium chloride, and conclusively determined that the grapefruit seed extract was killing the microbes. So, grapefruit seed extract is a disinfectant that you can eat.
Grapefruit seed extract has been tested in a small clinical trial in 1990. It significantly reduced the levels of several pathogenic strains in 25 people whose digestive systems had become infected with bad bacteria and fungi. No side effects were observed in 4 weeks of treatment. All 15 patients who took the grapefruit seed extract in capsule form (in the substantial dose of 150 milligrams three times per day) showed clinical improvement in irritable bowel symptoms. One might wonder why a product with such evidence of potency and safety was never subjected to another clinical trial in 30 years. Perhaps it’s because the medical research funding infrastructure is set up only to test products that make money for large corporations.
How Chinese Medicine Works
There is a tremendous amount of accumulated experience within Chinese medicine, Dr. Evan Rabinowitz said. A Doctor of Acupuncture, Dr. Rabinowitz practices at the Yao Shan Center for Chinese Medicine in Washington, DC and is a Professor at Daoist Traditions College of Chinese Medical Arts in Asheville, North Carolina. He also runs a continuing education program for other practitioners and serves as a guest lecturer at Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Complementary and Alternative Medicine program.
Dr. Rabinowitz explained that although SARS‑CoV‑2 may be a newly emerged virus, treating covid-19 with Chinese medicine does not require experimentation. That’s because Chinese medicine, which developed long before the invention of the microscope, is designed to treat detailed patterns of patient signs and symptoms. “What is of paramount importance to a clinician is to be very precise in differential diagnosis of the pattern presentation,” he said. Chinese medicine evolved through careful observation of patients culled over hundreds of years by intelligent clinicians who payed very close attention to how people get sick and get well, and which treatments work. “The things that don’t work don’t stay. It’s a profoundly empirical way of approaching treatment,” he said.
Dr. Rabinowitz said that Chinese herbal medicine can treat covid-19 both before a pharmaceutical agent or vaccine is developed and afterwards, to continue managing the symptoms of those who still get sick. “These herbal formulas are immediately available and not experimental. It’s not experimental from a Chinese medicine point of view. We are treating patterns of symptoms that are well recognized and have long clinical experience,” he said. Chinese medicine has the flexibility to adapt to variations within patterns, a prime capacity for a disease like covid-19 that varies in symptom expression between individuals. Chinese herbal formulas for infectious disease can either strengthen the immune system of well persons, support a healthy immune response while treating symptoms, or directly attack the pathogens.
Inside the Alveoli
In its common patterns of expression, Dr. Rabinowitz described the stages of covid-19. Current estimates indicate that between 40 to 80 percent of people who test positive for the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus have no symptoms. Doctors still don’t fully understand what is going on in asymptomatic carriers, but Dr. Rabinowitz suspects that their immune systems may be keeping the virus in check in the sinus cavity before the virus has a chance to reach the lungs. “The earlier you treat it, the greater the possibility that you can interrupt it,” he said.
Early signs and symptoms of covid-19 often resemble the common cold, with some people also having gastrointestinal upset. The moderate stage can begin only if the virus is able to travel down the trachea, into the bronchial tubes, the thinner bronchial branches, and all the way to the alveoli, the air sacs in the deepest part of the lung. The alveolar sacs have two cell types—Type 1, which exchange gas with the blood through capillary connections, and Type 2, which secrete surfactants to regulate surface tension.
The coronavirus attacks the Type 2 cells. “Corona” refers in Latin to the to the crown-like spike proteins on the virus’s spherical outer envelope. Coronaviruses use their spike proteins to attach to receptors on the host cell membranes, like fitting a key into a lock. SARS‑CoV‑2 uses its protruding spike proteins to attach to “ACE2” receptors on the Type 2 cells. Once attached, the virus invades the cell, releases its RNA, and hijacks the cell machinery to manufacture many more copies of itself, which it uses to infect other cells. As the virus replicates, the immune system attacks the site of the infection, but the immune response itself causes more damage: It thins the lining of the capillary vessels, increasing their permeability and causing fluid to leak into the interstitial space and into the alveoli themselves. As the alveoli start to fill with fluid, gas exchange becomes more difficult—This is the pneumonia stage. The person is getting hypoxemic, and as carbon dioxide builds up in the blood vessels, the blood becomes acidic. Because the virus has damaged the Type 2 cells, the alveoli can no longer regulate their surface tension and they eventually collapse. “If you collapse enough alveoli, you’re in big trouble,” Dr. Rabinowitz said.
The disease can then move to other parts of the circulatory system. Blood clots start to form, which can become systemic and can impact other organs. Blood coagulation can also occur in patients with only mild or no respiratory symptoms, because if the virus is replicating in the alveoli, the virus could pass through the permeable barrier into the bloodstream even if the alveoli are not damaged. Then, the virus is able to attack anywhere it finds an ACE2 receptor to latch onto, including the endothelial cells on the blood vessel walls, the heart, kidneys, or intestines.
Herbs in Action
When traditional medicines are subjected to scientific study, practitioners and the public benefit through the enhanced knowledge. “For example, Da Huang, rhubarb root, shows some very interesting evidence of interrupting the cytokine storm,” Dr. Rabinowitz said. A cytokine storm is a runaway immune response that produces an uncontrolled amount of inflammatory molecules, and is a major contributor of death in covid-19 patients. Indeed, the Chinese rhubarb root has been the subject of a number of studies since 1992 in rats, dogs, and people. In a 2018 study in rats with severe acute pancreatitis, anthraquinone compounds from rhubarb significantly prevented intestinal damage and reduced inflammatory cytokines. In a 2002 clinical trial of 78 people with systemic inflammation reaction syndrome, a serious condition requiring intensive care, supplementation with rhubarb powder reduced cytokines and significantly increased the cure rate over those who received only the control treatment. When scientists contribute such evidence, Dr. Rabinowitz said, it can help clinicians to refine a choice between two herbs both historically known to treat a particular set of signs and symptoms. “That’s ideal. That’s where you see the strength of Chinese medicine coming together with experimental research,” he said.
Dr. Rabinowitz discussed his approach to covid-19 for his patients. As Chinese medicine prescribes very individualized, precise treatments based on individual symptoms, Dr. Rabinowitz said that this is the first time in his career that he has had to design formulas for the general population in a public health context. “I asked myself: How can I make the maximum public health benefit by creating safe formulas for the maximum number of people?” he said. Because the disease began in China, practitioners of Chinese medicine got a head start from the data provided by their Chinese colleagues. “We are really fortunate because the Chinese quickly publicized a lot of their findings and have made that information widely available,” Dr. Rabinowitz said.
Dr. Rabinowitz worked with a local company to make six Chinese herbal formulas as tinctures available to his patients—two each for the preparatory stage prior to virus exposure, two for early signs and symptoms, and two for moderate symptoms. One of his preparatory formulas is a customized version of the Yu Ping Feng San, or Jade Windscreen formula. Jade Windscreen was one of the formulas given to Chinese hospital workers to protect them from SARS in 2003, and a 2006 study showed that healthy volunteers who took preparatory herbal formulas—including Jade Windscreen—got significant immunomodulatory improvement measured in their blood after just 2 weeks.
Jade Windscreen’s use was first chronicled in 1213. A major component of Jade Windscreen is Huang Qi (pronounced Chi), astragalus root, which is widely sold in the United States as an immunity booster. (It’s also called milkvetch in the UK.) Huang describes the root’s yellow color. Qi usually means the subtle life-sustaining energy that pervades all living things. It turns out that “qi” is a homonym in the name of astragalus, but Huang Qi is aptly named because astragalus does in fact stimulate qi. Qi operates at a finer rate of vibration than electromagnetic energy.
“Astragalus is an extremely important herb to increase innate immunity in a well person,” Dr. Rabinowitz said. An experiment on influenza-infected cells showed that astragalus has a direct effect on various immune-signaling molecules, to the detriment of the virus. In healthy humans, astragalus boosts the interferon proteins that organize immune defense. Incredibly, it appears that astragalus may be selectively improving only helpful immune response, because astragalus has actually been shown to reduce inflammatory cytokines. Such is the power of an herb that has many active saponin, flavonoid, and polysaccharide compounds.
Dr. John Chen, who has a Ph.D., Doctorate of Pharmacology, and Doctorate in Oriental Medicine, has lectured at several universities and has written books about Chinese herbal formulas and herb–drug interactions. “Overall, the safety profile of herbs is excellent, as the benefit is significantly greater than the risk,” he said in an e-mail. He noted that some herbs need to be used with caution. For example, astragalus is not recommended to people taking immunosuppressant drugs. Other herbs, such as licorice root, are meant for short-term courses and not chronic medicinal use. “It is best to seek professional help for accurate diagnosis and optimal use of herbs,” Dr. Chen said.
Chinese doctors treating covid understood that ventilators can’t properly support critically ill patients if their alveoli are filled with fluid and oxygen can’t reach their bloodstream. Dr. Chen said that Chinese doctors have given herbal formulas to these patients to loosen the phlegm, after which they may be able to breathe on their own. Two of the herbs in these formulas are difficult for U.S. practitioners to obtain, one of which is Ma Huang, ephedra. “Ma Huang’s strength is as a bronchodilator to open up the lungs,” Dr. Rabinowitz said, explaining that Ma Huang is safe when prescribed appropriately for acute respiratory conditions such as pneumonia or asthmatic attack. It is not prescribed to patients with certain underlying cardiovascular problems or nervous system disorders. Ephedra is now a controlled substance in many Western countries because it had been misused as a weight-loss drug, sometimes with dangerous outcomes. Many practitioners in Western countries find substitute herbs for Ma Huang.
Dr. Rabinowitz said that wherever the Western conventional medical system has a gap, Chinese medicine is more than capable of stepping up to fill that gap if society opens a place for it within its overall healthcare system. Before Western medicine was introduced into China, “Chinese medicine” was simply Medicine. “It is inherently a full medical system capable of treating all kinds of disease, chronic and acute,” he said. In 21st‑Century China, traditional medicine is fully integrated with Western medicine at the hospital level. Traditional and Western-trained practitioners view each other as peers.
Dr. Rabinowitz is monitoring his patients through telemedicine. Many of his patients are on the preparatory formulas, and he has seen and treated many confirmed covid-19 cases with mild to moderate disease. A number of other patients have tested negative, but have symptoms that match covid-19. All of his patients have been able to stay at home, except for one resident of a nursing home who was transferred to the hospital as a precaution. Dr. Rabinowitz has communicated his formulas to other practitioners. “In situations like this, people need help and people want to help,” he said. “I feel grateful to have a platform to be of service.”
Rocket Fuel
Vitamin C, ascorbic acid or ascorbate, is used by every cell in the body and is an essential component of immune function. It powers white blood cells to fight infection, strengthens blood vessels, and protects cells from oxidative stress. Oxidative stress refers to the effects of the chemical process of oxidation, where molecules lose an electron. “Life and disease is basically a process of electron movement,” said Dr. Richard Cheng, M.D., Ph.D., who runs an integrative health center in Columbia, South Carolina. Oxidized molecules become “radicals,” highly unstable in their quest to find another electron with whom to remake the pair bond. The immune system’s inflammatory response produces many unstable reactive molecules to fight the infection, but they can also do serious damage to human cells. They raid important molecules from cells to steal their electrons, radicalizing these biomolecules in the process, and potentially causing a chain reaction. Dr. Cheng explained that this is the very process by which the body is harmed by toxins. If oxidative damage gets too severe, it can lead to organ failure. Cytokine storms wreak their havoc precisely by releasing large amounts of reactive oxidized molecules into the body. Antioxidants like Vitamin C come to the rescue: They bequeath needed electrons to bond with the reactive molecules, thereby protecting cells from damage.
Both Dr. Cheng and Ms. Taylor explained that aging and chronic diseases—like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity—are at their essence, conditions of chronic oxidative stress and inflammation. Acute inflammation is part of the immune system’s job to an extent, but it is beneficial only if held tightly in check. Aging accumulates radical molecules in the body, effecting a chronic state of inflammation. The coronavirus can exacerbate the immune response quickly, which is why the elderly and those with existing chronic conditions are at a distinct disadvantage. “They’re taken over the top quicker. Their bodies can’t fight it as well as a person who isn’t already dealing with inflammation,” Ms. Taylor said. Ninety-six percent of covid victims in Italy had existing chronic conditions, as did 94 percent in the U.S.
Understanding that the vast majority of people who die from covid-19 die from the body’s immune response, instead of virus itself, is essential. This means that covid-19 is not to be fought just through antiviral agents, but with anything that helps the body have a healthy, regulated immune system—from vitamins to herbs to internal holistic factors. Scientists know that fear and anxiety cause increased inflammation and immune dysregulation. A hospital nurse has chronicled that a number of patients who came in with shortness of breath were covid-negative but tested positive for anxiety. How much worse would such patients have fared if they were actually infected with SARS‑CoV‑2? Could this mean that fear of the virus has contributed to the covid-19 death toll? Whoa! But Swami Sri Yukteswar said to look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you, so learning the details of how covid-19 happens and how to stop it assuages the thought of it.
The word “vitamin” came from “vital amines,” referring to the members of a class of organic compounds that the body must obtain from external sources. Not all vitamins are amines, but all are necessary for maintaining health. Vitamin C is the immune system’s rocket fuel. White blood cells—which kill pathogens—actively suck in Vitamin C at concentrations 50 to 100 times higher than the surrounding blood plasma. When people have severe pneumonia, their Vitamin C levels plummet. The reverse is also true: Doctors have long known that scurvy, which is caused by a severe deficiency in Vitamin C, is associated with more infections and more pneumonia.
Dr. Cheng disagrees with the idea of studying covid-19 from scratch as if it were a new disease, because covid-19 has common mechanisms and pathways of disease expression with previously defined diseases. The name “covid-19” is new, but pneumonia is not. The vast majority of covid-19 deaths are caused not by the virus, but from oxidative stress that leads to the respiratory distress of severe pneumonia. “If we target this, we should be able to help many patients improve dramatically. It’s not a hypothesis. This has been done in the past with high-dose Vitamin C,” he said. Based on this vast existing knowledge, Dr. Cheng said that not giving Vitamin C a prominent place in covid-19 treatment is borderline unethical. Whether or not a society enables its scientific establishment to consider covid-19 solely in the paradigm of a new disease caused by a particular pathogen is an extremely important matter, because this is a life and death crisis.
Dr. Andrew Saul, Ph.D., who has dedicated his career to teaching people about vitamin science, says that Vitamin C is the most important treatment available against covid-19. “The coronavirus pandemic can be dramatically slowed, or stopped, with the immediate widespread use of high doses of Vitamin C. Physicians have demonstrated the powerful antiviral action of Vitamin C for decades . . . Preventing and treating respiratory infections with large amounts of Vitamin C is well established,” Dr. Saul wrote in a January press release.
Just how well established is Vitamin C research? More than 65,000 peer-reviewed studies have been published on this vitamin. Dr. Claus Washington Jungeblut, M.D., who taught at Columbia University in New York, discovered that Vitamin C inactivates the polio virus in 1935. He studied this by infecting monkeys with solutions of polio and Vitamin C, and published five papers on this research through 1939. His early research also established that naturally derived Vitamin C—from plants—is significantly more effective than synthetic C. Another 1939 study on monkeys purported to show the medical community that Vitamin C had no effect on polio; however, that study infected the monkeys by squirting fluid at high pressure into their nasal cavities, and the dosage of Vitamin C used was far too low for that method. The study was set up to fail.
A decade later, Dr. Fred Klenner, M.D., a board-certified chest specialist, confirmed that Vitamin C can cure polio and viral pneumonia in his clinical practice in Reidsville, North Carolina. He treated 60 polio patients with a protocol of 6 to 20 grams of C on the first day and 4 to 8 grams on the second and third days. All but three patients were cured of polio after 3 days of this treatment, and the remainder needed only 2 extra days of treatment. The vitamin was administered either intravenously or by injection, much more absorbable than through oral ingestion. For reference, obtaining 1 gram of Vitamin C from food would require eating 14 medium-sized oranges. Dr. Klenner also used high-dose Vitamin C to treat measles and mumps. He published 20 papers on high-dose Vitamin C in his career.
How much Vitamin C is safe to take? The U.S. National Institutes of Health—the NIH—has reviewed the studies, and says that except for those with existing kidney disease, genetic G6PD deficiency or hemochromatosis, Vitamin C can be safely administered to everyone else at doses up to 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight, which equates to 102 grams for a 150-pound person. Orally, when the body receives as much Vitamin C as it can use, it reaches what’s known as bowel tolerance. Simply put, “overdosing” on Vitamin C causes diarrhea. Research by Dr. Robert Cathcart, M.D., in the 1970s showed that 80 percent of healthy adults can tolerate at least 10 grams per day of oral Vitamin C.
There is a debate about the role of Vitamin C and kidney stones. Some scientists suppose that Vitamin C could increase stone risk because it increases the production of oxalate. However, oxalate needs to bind with calcium to form stones, and Vitamin C binds with calcium to prevent calcium oxalate from building up in the kidneys. Phosphate stones can’t form in acidic urine, and Vitamin C increases urine flow and urine acidity. For these reasons, a number of researchers are convinced that Vitamin C actually prevents kidney stones.
Two publicized studies have claimed that Vitamin C could increase stone risk, but their results are questionable. A U.S. study found a mathematical link between Vitamin C and kidney stones in men—but only in those with low potassium intake. The study also found that magnesium reduces kidney stone risk, likely by preventing calcium oxalate from forming. Swedish researchers published a brief report in 2013 concluding that Vitamin C supplementation doubles kidney stone risk in men, but its analysis was incomplete. A 1996 study found that people who take the most Vitamin C have a lower stone risk than those who consume the least.
Results from studies assessing Vitamin C’s effect on the common cold are jumbled. Vitamin C has not been found to prevent colds in the general population, but it has significantly decreased incidence of colds in people engaging in physical activity. These differing results may have been influenced by dosages and the use of relative metrics instead of absolute metrics. A double-blind randomized controlled trial in 1,444 South Korean soldiers, published in March 2020, shows that 6 grams per day of C reduces the chance of catching a cold by at least 20 percent; the effect was greater in those who have never smoked.
Vitamin C has been demonstrated to reduce the duration of colds in several clinical trials. A controlled experiment of 715 college students in the 1990s showed that 3 grams of C orally per day decreased cold symptoms by 85 percent overall compared to those who received pain relievers and decongestants. Those initially reporting cold symptoms received a megadose of 6 grams over 6 hours. Because the entire treatment group received the vitamin whether reporting symptoms or not, these results actually combine measuring cold prevention and duration. This was not a blind trial, but the placebo effect—the mind’s own immune-boosting capability—would not have explained an 85 percent difference.
China has already studied and successfully treated covid-19 patients with intravenous Vitamin C. At Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan in February, Dr. Zhiyong Peng, Professor and Chief of Critical Care Medicine, and staff gave covid patients 24 grams of C per day. Preliminary data shows significantly decreased inflammation and improved organ function in the Vitamin C group compared with the control. Furthermore, healthcare workers at Wuhan hospitals received 1 to 2 grams per day of Vitamin C powder as a preventive measure. At Ruijin Hospital at Jiaotong University in Shanghai, Dr. Enqiang Mao, Professor and Chief of Emergency Medicine, treated 50 covid cases of moderate to severe pneumonia with 10 to 20 grams of C per day. The Vitamin C group had shorter hospital stays by 5 days on average compared to the 303 patients who didn’t receive C, and there were no fatalities in the C group. Dr. Cheng personally communicated with both Dr. Peng and Dr. Mao about their research. Both studies are in the process of being published.
One patient at Ruijin Hospital was entering respiratory failure and received 50 grams of Vitamin C over 4 hours. The hospital attendants observed a real-time improvement in the patient’s breathing continuously through those 4 hours. Essentially, Vitamin C raised a person from the almost-dead. Dr. Cheng reported that this patient returned home safely.
Based on these results, 30 experts affiliated with the Shanghai Medical Association formed a team to write a comprehensive coronavirus treatment plan that included high-dose intravenous Vitamin C. It was published on March 1. The Shanghai city government endorsed the plan, which received widespread media coverage in China and led to other Chinese hospitals providing Vitamin C to their patients. Doctors from around the world started to take notice as well. Northwell Health system in New York, the state’s largest hospital network, began administering intravenous Vitamin C to its covid patients. This was reported by the New York Post. Several U.S. hospitals began their own Vitamin C studies, posting the information onto the clinicaltrials.gov database.
On April 8, 2020, Dr. Cheng gave a public online presentation about Vitamin C science, set up by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The presentation was attended by about 200 people, including scientists in academia. Dr. Cheng reported on the latest from the high-dose Vitamin C treatment studies in China and reviewed the wealth of research on the link between intensive care status and Vitamin C deficiency, on high-dose intravenous Vitamin C’s demonstrated ability to save the lives of patients with pneumonia and acute respiratory distress, on oral Vitamin C studies, and on the vitamin’s safety. The presentation was shared amongst NIH employees and was well-received, according to feedback. A member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services forwarded the presentation to the FDA. Over the past few months, Dr. Cheng has given similar presentations to scientists and officials from all continents, including countries as small as Estonia.
Most animals make their own Vitamin C in their livers, but humans and other primates do not. Biologists have determined that apes and monkeys eat about as much Vitamin C per day as other animals make on their own. Chimpanzees at the zoo are fed much more Vitamin C than we eat. However, human ancestors are believed to have eaten much more Vitamin C than people do presently. Based on these data, the estimated human equivalent of animals’ Vitamin C intake is 1.8 to 4.0 grams per day. That’s for healthy people. But animals have a key adaptation: When under stress, including oxidative stress from fighting infection, their livers manufacture 10 times their normal amount of Vitamin C. Dr. Cathcart’s research showed that human bowel tolerance of C also increases by 10 times for severe colds, flu, and viral pneumonia. This knowledge makes the doses used by Dr. Klenner against polio and Dr. Mao against covid appear not only reasonable, but warranted. High-dose Vitamin C is the single most important intervention that can begin saving lives right now. And hey, even the FDA increased its recommended daily allowance for Vitamin C last year—to one cup of orange juice.
Immune System's Best Friends
Vitamins are the immune system’s best friends. Just as cherished to the immune system as Vitamin C is Vitamin D. Vitamin D regulates immune function so that it works most effectively. It increases the body’s production of special proteins with anti-microbial properties, known as cathelicidins and defensins. Yet, it also decreases the production of damaging inflammatory cytokines. Furthermore, Vitamin D enhances the expression of the body’s own antioxidant genes, which helps to take some of the load off of Vitamin C. Healthy Vitamin D levels are thus associated with decreased susceptibility to severe respiratory infections. These mechanisms also mean that Vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency predispose one to chronic disease.
Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that the body uses quickly, whereas Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that can be stored long-term. If Vitamin C is the immune system’s rocket fuel, then Vitamin D is its photoelectric storage battery. Vitamin D levels get built up or depleted slowly over time. Vitamin D levels in the blood are usually measured in the units of nanograms per milliliter. The standard acceptable range is 30 to 100 nanograms per milliliter, but many doctors recommend at least 50 for optimal health. Levels of 20-29 are considered insufficient, and below 20 is deficient.
The body manufactures Vitamin D in a chemical reaction when sunlight reaches skin. However, most people do not get enough sun exposure for adequate Vitamin D levels. Current research suggests that sunscreen may decrease Vitamin D synthesis, but not to a significant extent. Vitamin D synthesis is maximized with sunscreens that have higher UVA protection relative to UVB-SPF.
In the United Kingdom, above 50° latitude, the average person of Anglo-Saxon ethnicity is Vitamin D deficient during the winter and nearly all with South Asian ethnicity are deficient in both summer and winter, without supplementation. Research indicates that Vitamin D levels in the United States have been steadily decreasing over the past three decades. U.S. data from 2010, based on defined racial categories that broadly correspond to color, found that 81 percent of black Americans, 58 percent of brown Americans and 28 percent of white Americans are Vitamin D deficient. The percentages of people with insufficient levels are much higher in all categories. These disparities come from the fact that the darker a person’s skin is, the less Vitamin D they can get from sunlight. Before anyone attacks the Sun as being a racist, it is worth remembering that the genes for darker skin tones arose in hotter, equatorial regions, whereas paler skin evolved in colder latitudes with less sunshine. This is the only reason why the human race has a diversity of skin colors.
The media, which has been hoodwinked for years to participate in the conventional pharmaceutical-medical establishment’s smear campaign against natural medicine, has actually reported on Vitamin D’s role in fighting covid-19. That’s because data showing that Vitamin D-deficient people are 10 times more likely to die of covid-19 was simply too blatant to fully ignore. That’s what Indonesian doctors found in April when examining the D levels of 780 confirmed covid-19 cases. A Filipino study also found that having enough Vitamin D storage makes it extremely less likely to become critically ill from covid. Eighty-five percent of hospital patients with sufficient D levels had only mild symptoms, but 99 percent each of Vitamin D-deficient and insufficient people had moderate, severe, or critical symptom outcomes. Then in September, researchers at the University of Chicago found that Vitamin D-deficient people are 77 percent more likely to even test positive for the virus in the first place than those not deficient—a truly astounding result. While the media has reported on these studies to an extent, they have not publicized nearly enough the importance of increasing Vitamin D levels to combat this virus, particularly in preparation for the late autumn months. But the media is not entirely monolithic, and perhaps no outlet has covered Vitamin D and other natural health topics in 2020 more consistently than Newsmax.
To illustrate how much the body craves D’s companionship, I will share my personal odyssey with this vitamin. Four years ago, about 5 days after a finger sprain, I got strange symptoms of numbness and tingling radiating up my arm and neck to the side of my face. The symptoms lasted several days. I thought it might have something to do with the injury. No one believed me. About 6 months later, I got another minor injury. Again, 5 days later, I got the same set of symptoms. I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. A new primary care doctor wisely decided to test several nutrient levels in my blood including Vitamin D. My level was 11. Armed with this information, I read that the process of wound healing draws Vitamin D from the rest of the body, so what little D I had had had dropped even lower. This severe Vitamin D deficiency caused localized phosphorus deficiency, which caused the tingling. Later, when going through files, I stumbled upon previous Vitamin D results from a gastroenterologist who had given me a blood test in preparation for some immunosuppressant injections they wanted to give me. My level at that time had been 15. The doctor’s office never told me I was Vitamin D deficient. To find out, I had to wait another 2 years until I was so deficient that I was numb in the face. I have since raised my level to 75 through the guidance of my current integrative medical doctor.
Dr. Cheng supports policies that help society reach a state of protected population-level immunity, which is when enough of the people have become immune that the virus can’t reach anyone new to infect. Policies of over-isolation, re-opening, and then re‑isolating once cases rise again simply lengthen the duration of the virus’s hold over the people, delaying protected population immunity. “People need to be educated on how to protect themselves,” he said. If people learn to take more Vitamin C and Vitamin D, their bodies will be better able to deal with exposure when entering crowds.
“Vaccines won’t help us for a year or two,” Dr. Cheng said (in June). He explained that developing a safe and effective vaccine for a coronavirus is technically very challenging, because RNA viruses mutate rapidly. Even though efforts are proceeding to fast-track vaccine development quicker than ever before, safety and efficacy must be determined. On November 9, pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners announced a vaccine made of synthetically-derived messenger RNA, which their preliminary internal data indicates is safe and 90 percent effective, although distribution could take many months. The same applies to a second vaccine announced a week later. “We are betting all our chips on vaccines. That’s a huge mistake,” he said. Dr. Cheng supports investigating new drugs and vaccines for covid-19 on top of the vitamins that are immediately available. As the U.S. Congress has allocated large chunks of funding for vaccines, additional funding and organization can provide Vitamin C, Vitamin D3, magnesium, and zinc to high-risk groups including senior citizens, health-care workers and emergency workers. Zinc is a potent antiviral, and magnesium is needed for more than 800 functions in the body. Magnesium deficiency is widely prevalent.
Qing Fei Pai Du Tang
How did China crush covid-19 in only two months? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that 85 percent of people treated for covid-19 in China received traditional Chinese medicine. That’s right: 85 percent. This bears repeating. Eighty-five percent of all people who got sick with covid-19 in China were treated with Traditional Chinese Medicine.
A country of 1.4 billion people, China has only recorded 86,700 covid cases and 4,634 deaths. China likely underreported its numbers during the height of its winter outbreak, and China does not include asymptomatic infections in its official case count. But if China’s outbreak really matched the U.S.’s in scale, then they would be lying about over 70 million cases and 1.3 million deaths.
After the Chinese government in Beijing admitted on December 31 that a new pathogen was beginning to spread, they sent a delegation of medical experts to Wuhan to characterize the disease and symptom progression. They realized that individualized treatment was not an option for covid-19 because of the sheer volume of patients, lack of time, and the hospital workers’ protective equipment that made personalized diagnosis difficult. So the doctors adapted. In the process of treating thousands of covid-19 patients with herbal medicine, they found that combining four herbal formulas—each designed to treat different stages of disease—was the most effective treatment, and recommended that it be given to all covid-19 patients. In combining these formulas, the Chinese government doctors removed two herbs that were not suited to the full range of covid-19 symptom expression, ending up with 21 total herbs. Among these are Zhi Gan Cao(Sao) – licorice root and rhizome, Gui Zhi – cinnamon sticks, Kuan Dong Hua – coltsfoot flower, Chen Pi – tangerine peel, and Sheng Jiang – ginger. They named the formula Qing Fei Pai Du Tang (pronounced Ching Fae Pie-Dew Tong), meaning “lung cleansing and detoxifying tea,” brewed to medicinal standards, taken warm, twice a day.
On this formula, symptoms disappeared within 3 to 6 days and patients tested coronavirus-negative in about 10 days. These data were compiled by the Vice President of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine from clinical observations at 66 hospitals. In a preliminary April report, 99.28 percent of the 1,262 patients who received the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang had recovered and gone home. Dr. Chen, in a webinar, acknowledges that while these statistics haven’t been peer-reviewed, he agrees with the formula’s rationale. “After looking through all the formulas and reading all the medical journals, I’m also convinced that this is the best strategy to treat mild to moderate cases of covid-19,” he said. Dr. Chen is collaborating among three medical doctors and four licensed acupuncturists to replicate this study in the United States through three University of California institutions. One group of patients will receive mushrooms historically used as immunity boosters, another will get hospital standard treatment, and a third group will receive the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang.
In February, Chinese scientists delved into the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang’s machinery. They found that the formula contains compounds that act like ACE2 receptors. The compounds can bind whatever latches onto ACE2, like, for instance, the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus, thereby preventing the virus from attaching to cells. A type of analysis known as network pharmacology revealed that this formula regulates key immunological signaling pathways that balance the immune response and can eliminate inflammation. The formula also supports the endocrine system and nervous system. The Qing Fei Pai Du Tang and several other Chinese herbal formulas prescribed for covid-19 regulate the immune response to prevent severe disease by inhibiting a metabolic pathway that makes—guess—inflammatory cytokines.
China’s National Health Commission published a guidance manual for the treatment of the 2019 coronavirus disease. It includes instructions for the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang. The health commission revised the document several times and published a version in English on March 3 so that the rest of the world could have access to it.
A Nation of Hypocrites
Meanwhile, in the United States, the “World” Health Organization met with several tech companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Verizon, Twilio, Dropbox, and Salesforce to facilitate the suppression of information about natural medicine. Youtube, which is owned by Google, removed a video posted by Dr. Cheng reporting from China about a family’s success with high oral doses of Vitamin C. Then, they removed an expanded version of Dr. Cheng’s presentation about Vitamin C science, which discussed the 2020 clinical trials. “There is some interest group working here,” Dr. Cheng said. Youtube also removed several of Dr. Saul’s videos. Facebook placed a graywall over a post that reported the clinical trial results of high-dose Vitamin C, covering the post with a link to an article from a major U.S. newspaper containing lies and anti-vitamin propaganda. Then, Facebook changed its algorithm to bury Dr. Saul’s future posts in users’ newsfeeds. On facebook, Dr. Saul wrote, “I personally know a substantial number of well-qualified physicians now threatened with license revocation if they do not shut up about [Vitamin C for covid-19].” The words in brackets were written in code to evade censorship. In an e-mail, Dr. Saul clarified that state licensing boards have threatened doctors for treating patients with Vitamin C as well as talking about it, and that to his knowledge, the biggest offenders are California and New York.
Dr. Cheng is aware of at least two dozen Vitamin C treatment studies for covid-19 that are not being reported on clinicaltrials.gov, because the researchers don’t want certain entities to know. The integrative team of seven had planned their clinical study on the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang in April, but it appears that some mysterious forces are preventing Californian covid patients from being cured with Chinese herbs. The FDA and the Federal Trade Commission—the FTC—are actively threatening to shut down vitamin and supplement retailers who make health claims about coronavirus. Though the media has presented this as “combatting fraud,” the FDA’s hit list includes Vitamin C, Vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, grapefruit seed extract, astragalus, and Chinese herbs. In January, the FDA took down the blog of Dr. Richard Schulze, one of the world’s foremost experts in herbal medicine—who also makes and sells a line of organic vitamins and supplements—for being “uncompliant” with what the FDA deems allowable speech. This online library contained more than a decade’s worth of articles and videos about natural health topics. The U.S. Government has hereby ensured that this life-saving information is not available at the time when the people need it the most. Notwithstanding that the FDA’s and FTC’s censorship of health speech is against the will of the people as expressed in 1994, most of it is blatantly Unconstitutional in the first place.
As oppressive as these state and federal attacks on healthcare freedom are, it could be even worse. There may be no country in the world in 2020 where healthcare and speech are more suppressed than in Canada. The Canadian federal agency known as “Health Canada” has sent threatening orders not only to manufacturers marketing products to strengthen the body’s response to the coronavirus, but also to naturopathic doctors, health food stores, a television network, and Amazon. Health Canada has shut down advertising of Vitamin C, D, B‑Complex, and zinc, along with traditional North American herbs echinacea and goldenseal and other immune-supporting formulas. Health Canada forced Radio-Canada to retract an “unverified” claim. The Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors has barred its members from treating covid-19 patients.
These sorts of tyrannical actions are nothing new for Canada, which before covid had already begun to silence naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, and other health professionals. In the province of British Columbia, government regulators severely restrict these doctors from advertising the efficacy of any treatment deemed in opposition to the pharmaceutical overlords. In March, a naturopathic doctor in British Columbia, who is also a city councillor, was forced to stop advertising immune-boosting shots of Vitamin C and D. Providers are not even allowed to advertise patient testimonials, lest they lure more Canadians away from the yoke of medical fascism. And just like in any proper fascist society, Canadian citizens are being encouraged to rat on anyone they catch trying to publicly help people fight the coronavirus on their own. Perhaps Health Canada should be renamed Disease Canada, because that’s the outcome of their actions. Any Americans who naïvely thought of Canada as some sort of more-enlightened haven just got the shock of their lives.
We Americans, at least, are protected by the First Amendment. Credit goes to the local media outlets who let even a trickle of information flow to the public about fortifying the immune system in the face of coronavirus. Despite pharmaceutical attempts to keep us ignorant, North American people have somehow been able to learn something about the usefulness of vitamins and plants before today. About 3 out of 4 Americans and 4 out of 5 Canadians take at least one dietary supplement. More than half of American adults take a multivitamin regularly, and close to 2 out of 3 Canadians are aware that vitamins and supplements can help stave off illness. In Mexico, a country now as obese as the United States, supplement use is increasing as more Mexicans begin to take ownership over their health.
Drug companies have always opposed people taking vitamins and other dietary supplements. The “Center for Science in the Public Interest,” which should be renamed the Center for Science-Denying in the Pharmaceutical Interest—the publisher of Nutrition Action newsletter—lobbied the federal government to try to force Amazon to stop the selling of dozens of dietary supplements by small businesses on its Marketplace. Amazon complied, but only after persistent nudging from NPR. CSPI wants to ban these supplements not because of any covid claims, but simply because they can fight viruses or help the immune system to do the same. CSPI then stepped up its attacks against our health by attempting to take down the website of Dr. Joseph Mercola, D.O., a leader in science communication and natural health awareness. Dr. Mercola sells supplements on another website; he fought back against the attack by adjusting his sites to make their distinction more evident. CSPI is heavily funded by arms of the pharmaceutical and agrichemical industries such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the “Alliance for Science”.
While U.S. state and federal officials can’t directly suppress the speech of its citizens, if they wanted to they could try to get Silicon Valley to do it for them. Twitter has employed its own unique strategy to stifle information in 2020. When twitter users click on links to Mercola.com, the world’s most-visited natural health website since the early days of the internet, Twitter redirects them to a page falsely claiming that the link “may be unsafe” and could harm their computer. This practice is doubly deceptive, because at first glance it appears as if the warning comes from the user’s web browser instead of twitter.
Google reprogrammed its algorithms on June 3, 2019 to block several top natural health websites from appearing in its search results. Traffic to top natural health websites from Google searches plummeted by 95 to 99 percent overnight. Why would Google do this? Well. Google has made numerous deals and connections with pharmaceutical companies in the past 6 years, most of whom are major manufacturers of vaccines. Their names are Pfizer, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Merck, Vaccitech, and Gilead, which owns the patent for remdesivir. And that’s not even the root of it: Google itself is a pharmaceutical company. One of its two pharmaceutical divisions, named—incredibly—“Verily,” publicly lists its partnerships with 35 major drug companies and research hospitals. Google also funds Wikipedia, whose entrenched bias against natural medicine starts at the top and stems to the administrators who closely guard its edits.
Google has now begun wiping or blocking access to people’s own files on Google Drive that it deems contrary to its financial or political agenda. In May, Google wiped copies of a video file from users’ Drive folders on a tip by a reporter from The Washington Post, who openly vaunted her role in the censorship. Yes, democracy does die in darkness. In March, Google evanesced an informational review paper that presented chloroquine to be a promising candidate against coronavirus. The paper contains treatment protocols from South Korea and China as well as an in-depth analysis of the drug’s mechanisms of action. Chloroquine’s derivative, hydroxychloroquine, works much the same way. Why would anyone want to suppress information about a common drug when the coronavirus had just reached the U.S. and this was the first conventional option identified? Two words: It’s cheap. Hydroxychloroquine costs about a dollar per dose.
A 2005 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal found that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects against SARS‑CoV‑1 in cells, given either before or after exposure to the virus. This original SARS virus, which spread in 2003, is 79 percent genetically identical to SARS‑CoV‑2. Clinical data this year from multiple countries have showed chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to be demonstrably effective against covid-19. One striking experiment retrospectively compares outpatients in Monroe, New York who took hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and the antibiotic azithromycin with another group of patients who got no treatment in the same community. The treatment group was composed only of high-risk patients: either over 60, with underlying conditions, or shortness of breath. The treated patients were 84 percent less likely to be hospitalized and 80 percent less likely to die. In fact, only one person died at all in the treatment group, who had been so sick upon starting treatment that there was only time to take one dose before hospital admittance. Since the researchers couldn’t refine the risk levels of the control group, it is possible that the control group included lower-risk patients, which would make this treatment even more effective than the data shows.
Used both to prevent and treat malaria, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are two of the most common drugs in the world. In many countries, hydroxychloroquine is available over the counter. Emergency physician Dr. Simone Gold, M.D., J.D., explained in a radio interview on the Glenn Beck Program that doctors have extensive experience prescribing it not only in places with endemic malaria, but to patients with lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. “We use it for breastfeeding women, pregnant women, elderly, children, and the immune-compromised,” she said. “This was a totally non-controversial medication.” Dr. Gold was shocked when the smear campaign against this drug ignited in March. The mainstream media, and some of its other streams, poured gasoline all over the fire to seduce their followers into disbelieving the medicine. In the following months Dr. Gold founded America’s Frontline Doctors, a collaboration of physicians from a variety of areas of medical expertise—some of whom have directly treated coronavirus patients—to educate the public and policymakers.
Dr. Gold indicated that hydroxychloroquine has minimal risk in short-term use when prescribed properly. Some doctors consider it safer than aspirin, ibuprofen, and tylenol. The drug can cause uncommon side effects such as muscle weakness and joint pain. Doctors are aware of a slight risk of an eye problem that could develop in patients taking hydroxychloroquine continuously for more than 5 years. Dr. Gold explained that hydroxychloroquine can in theory interfere with the heart’s electrical rhythm by an effect known as QT elongation, but that this potential effect is very slight and nowhere near a cause for alarm as the media has portrayed it. “There are hundreds of medications that do potentially increase the QT interval,” she said. In hydroxychloroquine, the effect is so small that medical associations who have prescribed this for years for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus do not even recommend screening for it in outpatient settings. This side effect more likely to occur in chloroquine, which has a lower safety threshold than hydroxychloroquine anyway. Hydroxychloroquine did cause heart trouble in patients in the 1950s in high dosage levels that are now known to be unsafe. Proper dosing is extremely important with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. The opposite of Vitamin C, hydroxychloroquine works best at low doses, whereas high doses are toxic.
Hydroxychloroquine has at least five mechanisms of action. It hinders viral entry into cells and helps anti-viral zinc enter the cells instead; it blocks viral replication and shuts down the virus assembly line. This sounds like a sophisticated substance. Is there a secret to hydroxychloroquine’s efficacy? Why yes. It turns out that it’s actually a plant-based drug. Hydroxychloroquine is derived from a compound in the bark of quinine trees, genus Cinchona. Where do quinine trees originate? The Amazon, of course! Europeans found out about the bark’s medicinal properties in 1638 and began quinine’s global export and cultivation. George Washington arranged for his troops to take quinine, a decision credited as one of the reasons the United States won the Revolutionary War. Quinine was introduced as a treatment in the new nation’s first epidemic, of yellow fever, in 1793. In the 19th Century, scientists isolated a single compound with high anti-malarial effect from the bark. Shortages during World War II led to the mass production of synthetic chloroquine, and further-tweaked hydroxychloroquine was approved by the U.S. FDA in 1955.
The hydroxychloroquine disinformation and censorship scandal all came to a dramatic climax on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building on July 27. America’s Frontline Doctors was hosting a summit in Washington to discuss scientific research and covid-19 policy, and stepped outside to hold a press conference. Breitbart News was the only media outlet that bothered to show up. They recorded it and shared the video. Introduced by U.S. Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, the doctors presented the value of hydroxychloroquine with zinc to society both to prevent covid-19 symptoms and to treat mild to moderate symptoms. The preventive dose of hydroxychloroquine that the doctors advised is one 200-milligram pill, twice per week.
Facebook and Twitter joined Youtube’s position that this content was so dangerous (to pharmaceutical profits) that it had to be removed entirely. Wherever on the people’s pages the video was found, it was purged, from every nook and niche, on accounts big and small, from the teen trying to show her friends to the President of the United States trying to share with the country. Twitter punished Breitbart News by suspending their account for more than two days. The tech companies were alerted to this video’s existence by a Twitter post from a columnist with The New York Times. Facebook removed the video within an hour, and the other tech companies followed suit. The columnist made sure to follow up by alerting them that rogue copies of the video were still floating around on facebook. Just like in Fahrenheit 451, where firemen start fires to burn books, the media now prevents information from reaching the people. Then, the censorship became even ghastlier. The web-hosting company that the American Frontline Doctors had contracted with, Squarespace, removed their website from the internet.
Dr. Gold expressed dismay that the majority of U.S. states have instituted unprecedented restrictions on doctors’ ability to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to covid-19 patients. “We’ve never, ever had state governors tell our state medical boards to threaten us with unprofessional conduct if we were to prescribe an FDA-approved medication. It’s never ever happened. Ever”—that is, until 2020. “Americans, Wake Up,” Dr. Gold said. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy had banned hydroxychloroquine for all covid patients, but after hundreds of citizens petitioned, Ohio’s governor stepped in on July 30 to allow doctors to do their jobs.
The fiercest line from the America’s Frontline Doctors summit was delivered by Dr. Stella Immanuel, a primary care doctor in Houston who successfully treated all 350 of her covid-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin. Many of these patients have underlying conditions such as diabetes or obesity; her data is yet to be published. She called the recent flurry of anti-hydroxychloroquine studies “fake science.” This claim merits further investigation. Perhaps she was talking about a trio of studies from the world’s three most prestigious medical journals.
One study, which claimed that hydroxychloroquine doubles the risk of death from covid-19, was retracted from The Lancet after doctors discovered that its data was fraudulent. The study claimed to have compiled data on 96,000 patients from six continents, and also purported to show a marked risk of ventricular arrythmias. Retractions in scientific journals are rare; 2020 got a retraction blue moon because the New England Journal of Medicine had published a study on blood pressure medication for covid-19 whose data was provided by the same company. Conversely, the New England Journal of Medicine retained a study conducted at a network of UK hospitals that gave highly toxic doses of hydroxychloroquine to critically ill patients. Most of the patients were too sick for antiviral medicine to work anyway.
The third top journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association, published a study that gave chloroquine to critically ill patients at toxic doses in Brazil. Because chloroquine stays in the body a long time, these patients had 2.5 times the known lethal level in their bodies after 10 days. Predictably, the study found that the high-dose group was 2.5 times more likely to die than the lose-dose group. The patients with the most chronic conditions, or advanced age, were selected to receive the lethal doses. There is no proof that the study protocol was approved by a standard ethical review board designed to protect human subjects from harm. While the journal has refused to retract it, the study is under investigation by Brazil’s ministry of justice.
The reporting on these various studies led the FDA to cancel access to the hydroxychloroquine supply in the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile. It led several countries in Western Europe and the Western Hemisphere to ban doctors from prescribing hydroxychloroquine at all for covid treatment or prevention. Multiple other studies that have claimed hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work to treat or prevent covid, but didn’t give the patients zinc. Hydroxychloroquine is a zinc ionophore, which means it helps to shuttle zinc into the cells to kill the virus. While the drug does have antiviral mechanisms on its own, administering hydroxychloroquine without zinc is like trying to chop wood with a blunt axe.
Since the mainstream media couldn’t refute Dr. Immanuel on science, they instead attacked her religion, which is a West African flavor of Christianity. The most disgusting attack against her, however, came from The New York Times, by captioning her as “a woman who identified herself as Dr. Stella Immanuel.” CNN also engaged in kindergarten-level insults against the doctors by introducing them as “a group of people wearing white lab coats,” and like The New York Times, CNN expressed concern that the videos weren’t silenced sooner. Other outlets believe instead that it’s never too late to delete: A major science magazine published an article early this year about immune health, which actually interviewed a naturopathic doctor, but it has since been wiped from the internet.
So, media zeal has turned against doctors fighting to save lives. Could it possibly get any worse than that? Actually, yes. A major cable news network published an article in May that tried to scare people away from taking Vitamin D supplements, filled with false claims and denial of evidence. This outlet, like many others, has widely covered the fact that people “of color” in the U.S. and UK have disproportionately died from covid-19. By spreading these lies about Vitamin D, they help perpetuate the disparity. When China began to share with the world its success with herbal treatments, NBC News countered with anti-Chinese-medicine propaganda. This outlet, like many others, has widely covered the increase in anti-Asian bigotry this year, so they went and added more.
Hell
Hold on tight, because, as if all of that isn’t enough—and it’s a ton already—we have to go down to an even lower level of Stygian Hell. It pains me to even write what’s coming next, but foul undeeds demand accounting. After everything that’s been reported so far, it still gets even worse.
Facebook banned an article about a video interview with Dr. Brian Tyson of El Centro, California, who has successfully treated all 1700 of his covid-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and antibiotics. Then, these antichrists took any person who shared this article with their friends and blocked their entire accounts for 30 days. The interview was conducted by One America News and was shared by Health Impact News. Facebook has threatened to remove Health Impact News’s page permanently. I had never heard of either of these outlets; it’s important that we start publicizing places we can still go to get real news while the walls rapidly close in on America. Facebook, along with the other two companies in the unholy tech trinity, are leaving no stones unthrown to keep as many Americans dying, afraid, and ignorant as possible. And lest we forget, the World Disease Organization is right behind them, running the entire censorship campaign.
Facebook’s direct ties to pharmaceutical companies are unknown; if any exist, they have been shrewdly kept secret. Whatever its motive, Facebook has become one of the key belligerents in the socialist regime that has nearly completely succeeded in taking over the United States. They are on the precipice of purging all natural health content and shutting down the accounts of anyone—you and me—for communicating life-saving truths with each other. This monopoly has now decreed that anyone who dares to dissent from the dictates of the new murderous regime is not allowed to have friends. Well, Facebook, I’ve got news for you. If you continue in these sins, then you are not allowed to exist. The people will have the last word. If you so much as even touch my personal page, or anyone’s access to it, I’ll sue your ass. I would win, and so would the families of the victims. Facebook has become the exact opposite of what it was created for in a dorm room 16 years ago. Facebook’s crimes in 2020 are nothing short of cyber warfare against the people.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, apparently sensing that the U.S. was on the losing end of the censorship gap with Canada, decided to use the Constitution for toilet paper and ordered a doctor to take down his blog and stop advertising his therapies. Dr. David Brownstein, M.D., who runs a holistic medical practice in West Bloomfield, Michigan, has written 14 books and practiced for 24 years. He wrote on April 9 about his success treating coronavirus patients using Vitamin A, C, D, and iodine, with a couple other supplemental treatments if necessary. Vitamin A is an admiral of immune support and works in synergy with zinc. Iodine is a potent broad-spectrum anti-viral, an essential nutrient that triples as a disinfectant a nasal spray that kills SARS‑CoV‑2 in 15 seconds. Dr. Brownstein was a perfect 85 for 85 in saving lives, including some patients who were very sick. He published his results in July, when his success rate had reached 107 for 107. Every single patient had recovered within 7 days.
Dr. Brownstein, his prospective patients, and his cure rate may be the government’s prized quarry, yet his holistic clinic is but one target in a vast severely-Unconstitutional search-and-destroy operation against the publicizing of evidence-backed treatments that stop germs and save lives. The FTC has been combing through websites and social media pages. They have threatened and silenced more than 300 doctors, wellness clinics, and vitamin stores.
The FTC was likely also interested in silencing this speech, from the same article that chronicled Dr. Brownstein’s cure rate: “When the disease spun out of control our Government and conventional medicine panicked. They had no real therapies to help covid-suffering patients except for supportive care. . . . At my office, we were ready.” Dr. Brownstein wrote. “The first 24 years of practicing holistic medicine was our time to figure out what worked and what did not work for people suffering from viral infections. That set us up to be ready for this pandemic.” The FTC not only made Dr. Brownstein remove his blog, they also made him shut down his social media platforms containing testimonials from patients he had cured from covid. It is official: Rogue Executive Branch Agencies are at War with the American people. The Republic is being overthrown by a luciferian axis of institutions fixed on killing and enslaving the people, most of whom are sound asleep.
The President or Congress must step in immediately and shut down the FTC’s and FDA’s lawlessness. State legislatures must do the same against their medical licensing boards. If not, then I call upon courageous and principled doctors to rise up and Disobey the government and for we the people to Stand with them. If federal agents then raid their offices or homes or take under imprisonment any Citizen for exercising his Constitutional and natural rights, then such action would constitute an escalation of government’s war against the people, and is precisely the kind of scenario that the Second Amendment is meant to be the last resort against.
Ahimsa – nonviolence, a moral virtue written into the “Ten Commandments” of yoga philosophy, is one of the core principles of civil disobedience. Nonviolent protest movements keep the people demanding change on the moral high ground. This philosophy teaches the ideal of self-restraint in the face of police bullies who might take the law into their own hands on whim. In a civil society, principled protests are peaceful in body and firm in speech.
While nonviolent protest worked against the British colonialists and American segregationists in the 20th Century, it wouldn’t have worked at all against the Nazis or the Stalinists, and the Western world of 2020 is quickly approaching the latter. In this very stark hour, contingency plans may be needed if the vise of repressive government offers us nothing left but physical means to protect ourselves. Citizens’ militias could be organized to defend doctor’s offices, hospitals, and homes against government raids, to ensure that people can freely speak and seek the healthcare they need. Encrypted forms of communication may be necessary. Most directly, self-defense means armed resistance against police invasions into private homes ordered by state despots to break up family holiday gatherings. There is no more fundamental exercise of the right to bear arms than that. If we are not prepared to die for our freedom, then how can we still call ourselves Americans? I warn all elected leaders right now to choose: Side with the people and quickly act to save the Republic. If you do not, then the people may be forced to act on our own behalf. Let no more blood be shed on American soil in defense of liberty.
In this pitch darkness, with a faint odor of a musty drip, we can imagine a world where the United States of America had medical doctors with enough expertise to navigate people through covid-19 from the beginning. What would have happened had doctors in executive positions at leading U.S. research hospitals gotten together early this year, developed a plan born of decades of experience, began clinical use of the treatments, refined and revised the plan, saved lives, and then sent it to every media outlet and medical establishment organization that they could? Far fewer people would have died if something like that had happened, right? Wrong. This did happen.
Dr. Paul Marik, Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, began strategizing for the treatment of this emerging coronaviral pneumonia in January. Dr. Marik is one of the most experienced and well-regarded critical care experts in the world. He has almost 700 publications in his 39 years as a doctor. He had previously developed and clinically verified a safe and effective protocol for sepsis, the term that encompasses the severe symptoms resulting when the body poisons itself with reactive molecules. Dr. Marik coordinated with several other directors of critical care and professors at major hospitals and universities to devise a treatment protocol for covid-19, born of careers’ worth of knowledge and reams of prior clinical studies. Doctors like Paul Marik, Pierre Kory, Umberto Meduri, Joseph Varon, Jose Iglesias, Keith Berkowitz, Howard Kornfeld, and Fred Wagshul are coronaviruses’ worst enemies. Of course, the virus is already dead by the time patients are sick enough to require critical care, but the immune dysregulation left in its wake needs immediate attention. Together, they developed the MATH+ protocol, which stands for Methylprednisolone (a corticosteroid), Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Thiamine (Vitamin B1), Heparin (a bloodthinner), and several other accessory treatments. These doctors formed the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance in March to share and disseminate their results.
As in traditional Chinese medicine, the MATH+ protocol is not experimental. All of its elements had been verified to work in reams of prior clinical trials. The protocol cites 169 peer-reviewed studies. In fact, Dr. Marik’s “HAT” protocol, the forerunner of MATH+, had already become the standard of care for sepsis in some hospitals. Also like Chinese medicine, the FLCCC doctors closely observed the patterns and stages of symptom presentation for covid-19 in the emerging scientific literature and in their own hospitals. The doctors discovered that covid-19 does not mirror the similar condition of “acute respiratory distress syndrome,” but is instead a “secondary organizing pneumonia.” Dr. Marik incorporated dosage findings from the Shanghai Plan, but he didn’t get the idea to use intravenous Vitamin C from China; China got it in part from him. Dr. Marik was the lead author of the landmark 2016 study demonstrating that high-dose Vitamin C, hydrocortisone, and thiamine greatly reduced death from sepsis.
Corticosteroids are the most potent anti-inflammatory conventional drugs available, blocking many steps in the inflammation cascade, making them an obvious central component of covid treatment. They had saved lives from SARS and swine flu. Corticosteroids are based on the hormone cortisol produced by human adrenal glands. Contrary to what popular culture says, cortisol is not the “stress hormone;” it’s the anti-stress hormone. Preliminary research from 2020, bolstered by prior data, identified methylprednisolone to be most effective corticosteroid to use against covid-19.
Clinical results with MATH+ have been clear and convincing since March. Its overall effectiveness on critical covid cases is 95 percent. MATH+ indeed works like mathematics.
The only patients who MATH+ couldn’t save either waited too long to go to the hospital—more 6 hours after severe symptoms set in—or were already in advanced stages of underlying chronic disease. Dr. Pierre Kory, then Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, deployed in April to the Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital in Manhattan. His results were not as good as MATH+ got in other locations, because many New Yorkers were too scared to go to the hospital until they were already in advanced stages of sepsis. At that time, most hospitals in New York City were engaging in the barbaric practice of putting patients to sleep on ventilators and just waiting to see if they would magically recover; 88 percent died. At the time of this publication, there are thousands of patients at the edge of death in many hospitals. But where there is life, there is still a chance. In the Shanghai Plan, Vitamin C dosages are calculated by body weight. The data from Zhongnan and Ruijin hospitals show that for the sickest patients, doctors can really ratchet up that Vitamin C to save lives. By the way, those studies were ready to be published by August, but no major medical journal would dare publicize that Vitamin C saves lives.
When the Shanghai Plan was released on March 1, 2020, only three people in the United States had died from covid-19. China’s central government released their guidance manual in English two days later. This entire holocaust would have been prevented if Western nations had listened to the wisdom and experience that China was trying to share with the world. The campaigns of mass fearmongering and oppression would have been thwarted at the start. But by the end of March at least, the United States had its own team of seasoned experts whose treatment protocol was working and ready for intervention at hospitals everywhere.
Hell
The FLCCC Alliance communications team told everyone they could about the successes of the MATH+ protocol and tried to get it publicized as widely as possible. They translated the protocol into 5 languages. They built a website. Dr. Kory testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs on May 6. But the media and medical establishment agencies shut down their entreaties, including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and the WHO. They refused to publicize or promote the treatment protocol of top doctors who were saving lives. White House staff were notified four times, but as Dr. Kory testified, “We understand that it generated considerable interest until supposedly the N.I.H. and C.D.C. pushed back against it, instead seemingly favoring anti-viral and vaccine therapy.” They can’t kill a dead virus, and they couldn’t pull a vaccine out of a hat.
What was the supposed rationale for the medical and media establishments’ blockade on this life-saving treatment? They would only consider randomized controlled trials—“RCTs” in medical slang. In this case, RCTs mean subjecting patients’ lives to a lottery. It means that they would only consider publicizing the protocol if the doctors had arranged to kill some of their severely ill patients with fake medicine. There is no curse in the English language vicious enough to describe this atrocity! The FLCCC Alliance patiently explained to the medical agencies and media politburos, as if educating children, that RCTs would be highly inhumane during a deadly pandemic. Dr. Marik’s 2016 sepsis study used a far more ethical retrospective design, in which the control group was composed of patients from the same intensive care unit prior to the beginning of the treatment.
Inductive logic can place those who have silenced successful treatments into three basic categories: They’re either utter imbeciles, brainwashed, or they want the virus to continue feeding on human hosts. The latter possibility could result from among a few different satanic reasons. Yet, I must unveil that there is still one level of Hell even lower than the brimstone of this Stygian decrepitude. At a floor of molten basalt 1200 degrees centigrade lives the devil itself. In the Hadean level, the virus would have been released intentionally into the human race.
Only a few media outlets broke the blockade on MATH+. The Telegraph and Sky News in the UK and a few local television stations and local newspapers in the U.S. covered it. The New York Times did interview Dr. Kory, in an article about disagreements among doctors about treatment methods, but it did not disclose at all the success of the protocol. Reuters visited Dr. Varon in his hospital and didn’t even mention the treatment’s existence. The rest of the medical and media establishments, when told about the clinical successes of the MATH+ protocol, either ignored them or responded like the Associated Press, who said, “Publish an RCT and then we’ll write the story.” On behalf of everyone who has ever cared about anyone beyond their selfish selves: Fuck you. You mother-fuckers never demanded that masks be subjected to RCTs on this virus before you demanded to slam them over our faces, did you?
Masks have been mandated by nearly all U.S. state governors since May or June. A quick look at the data shows that masks have done nothing to stop the spread of this virus in the U.S—nor in Spain nor Belgium either. Vitamins, preparatory herbs, and hydroxychloroquine would be many times more effective in quashing this virus than masks. The mask orders were meant to keep the people under control and cover up that the Western medical establishment has no clothes.
The media had better get on their knees and thank the Founding Fathers that there’s a First Amendment. Happy Truth and Reconciliation Day, huh? The so-called medical “authorities” would be grateful if getting fired is their only consequence. As for the tech companies: There will likely be severe financial consequences for what they have already done, and their survival will hinge upon what they do starting today. Senator Elizabeth Warren brought forth a plan to break up the tech monopolies as part of her presidential campaign, and even the European Union says it’s not out of the question as a last resort.
After these despicable revelations, it is easy to want revenge. But, two wrongs don’t make a right. There is a reason we have a Martin Luther King Day. Investigations and accountability within a defined legal system are tenets of an open and civil society, as opposed to violent barbarism. Anyone who has intentionally perpetrated evil during this Third World War will be Judged in either this life or afterwards. Those who were too ignorant to understand that they have been morally corrupt can be shown direction.
Repent from Styx
A number of people whose actions or inactions have contributed to death may at this time desire to repent. If so, I bring Good News. God cares just as much about every person reading this as every person who died from coronavirus. Hell is a place of eternal suffering and lamentation, but we don’t have to stay here eternally. Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” For those who wish to repent now, Look Up, to the top of the page, at the three words above “A new hope.” Then use the table of contents to Repent from Styx. Now, after a few deep breaths, let us elevate back up to the lesser hell and complete this diagnosis of a society hanging by a thread.
Para-governmental entities at global, federal, and state levels, aided by their pawns in the media and enforcers who police the internet, have done everything in their power to suppress life-saving corticosteroids, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, and herbal medicine from the people. They have fabricated scientific studies, muzzled experts, given toxic doses to very sick patients, blocked doctors and pharmacies from prescribing medicine, stifled commerce, Unconstitutionally silenced speech, and threatened doctors who tell the truth about Vitamin C. This suppression is not limited to the United States and Canada; it expands to other Western nations whose governments are controlled by the pharmaceutical-medical establishment complex. France, where hydroxychloroquine had been available for years over the counter, suddenly restricted the drug to a “List 2 poisonous substance” on January 13, just two weeks after the world was informed about the spreading coronavirus. The Netherlands forced a doctor to stop treating covid patients with hydroxychloroquine and zinc; he has sued to try to regain the right to prescribe this medicine. Instead, to treat covid the medical establishment selected remdesivir, which causes harmful side effects, is feebler than seaweed, and costs $520 per dose. The ultimate culprits in this scandal are the drug companies, who feed the entire system and pull the strings behind the scenes, with no accountability, just as they have done for 110 years.
Believe it or not, drug companies used to be in the plant business themselves. Some of them are still quietly researching herbal antioxidants. Between 1981 and 2006, 70 percent of new drugs worldwide were derived from biological sources. They know full well that plants make medicine. By 2000, plant-derived drug development was diminishing as pharmaceutical companies found it less profitable than chemosynthesizing drugs with new, more efficient technologies. Then something else happened.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Association of Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. that human genes can’t be patented, on the principle that laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office updated its patent procedures accordingly in 2014. Consequently, it became much harder for drug companies to make a profit off of plants.
Has anyone else noticed a marked increase in anti‑natural propaganda and in pro-pharmaceutical state restrictions over the past 6 years? Coincidence? I think not. It is evident that a global confederacy of operatives has gone to any lengths necessary to ensure that only patentable, new vaccines or drugs shall be allowed to treat or prevent covid-19. More than 1,111,111 people have been killed. A crime against humanity.
Verily’s CEO has said, “Only through the truth are we going to defeat Mother Nature.” We’ll see who wins that one. I’m betting on Nature. Pretend a rational observer knows nothing else about the United States and China besides their levels of information and access to treatments for covid-19. If asked which country pretends to be a liberal democracy and which is actually a repressive communist regime, the answer would be blatantly obvious.
Shang Han Za Bing Lun
The thoroughly cleansing liquid of the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang, China’s universal prescription for the 2019 coronavirus disease, was informed by a book that was published in 219. No, that’s not a typo; it’s 219 A.D. Dr. Zhang Zhong-Jing lived at the end of the Han Dynasty. Overall, this was a thriving golden age of 400 years. But by the 180s, it had begun to fray. Narrow‑mindedness begat egotism, which bore disharmony, environmental imbalance, powermongering, division, and war, which caused food shortage, poor sanitary conditions, and the spread of epidemic disease. Two-thirds of the population of China died during a 10-year period. Infectious disease killed 70 percent of those who perished during that span. From the ashes of his fallen civilization, Dr. Zhang dedicated his life to studying medicine. He was the first doctor to organize herbal formulas by stages of disease expression within the body. He closely observed the signs, symptoms, and course of disease, and analyzed the empirical data from his prescriptions. He taught that doctors should adhere to principles of responsibility. Dr. Zhang’s legacy, the Shang Han Za Bing Lun, became seminal to the theory and practice of Chinese medicine and it was from this book that the doctors took the four formulas that compose the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang 1800 years later.
Chinese Virus or Chinese Cure?
Chinese scientists got to work after the 2003 SARS epidemic—which killed only 900 people worldwide—studying potential therapeutic interventions, many of which came from classic herbal preparations, so that they would be best positioned if any similar epidemic happened in the future. A 2004 study by a team of researchers from Peking University hunted for small molecules from 121 Chinese herbs that could block the spike proteins on the crowns of the rebel ruler coronaviruses from unlocking receptors and invading cells. Two small molecules exhibited the highest success, both of which strongly inhibited the SARS coronavirus—tetra-O-galloyl-β-D-glucose (TGG), and luteolin. Luteolin was also found to be an inflammatory mediator that significantly blocks cytokines. Testing in mice showed that both molecules are safe at relatively high concentrations. On the other hand, the scientists found that ribavirin, a drug initially attempted against SARS but that was barely effective and had serious side effects, did not even faze SARS‑CoV‑1.
TGG comes from Wu Bei Zi, the gall of the Rhus chinensis tree. The galls are growths of leaf tissue after attack by aphids—a kind of immune response from chinensis. Luteolin is a flavonoid compound found in several Chinese herbs including Jin Yin Hua – Lonicera japonica flower, better known as the honeysuckle in spring bloom on waysides in much of the world. (Honeysuckle flowers are edible; the berries are not.) With TGG or luteolin in the house, the virus’s spike proteins can’t bind to the ACE2 receptors. These mighty little molecules serve as shining shields that block the virus from invading our cells. Coronavirus Repelled.
But even if the virus is able to unlock the key and invade the cell, other plant compounds can come to the rescue. Ban Lan Gen – Isatis indigotica root has long been used to treat respiratory illnesses. It was widely taken as a SARS preventative, and in the laboratory it has suppressed swine flu and bird flu. A 2005 study in Taiwan found that isatis root inhibits 3C-like protease, which is one of two enzymes that SARS coronaviruses need to manufacture copies of their crown-spiked envelopes. Two of isatis’s active compounds, sinigrin and hesperetin, accomplished the feat most intrepidly. Without its crown, copies of the rebel virus cannot survive. Coronavirus Dethroned.
Studies from past epidemics have demonstrated the efficacy of Chinese herbal formulas in real-life situations. Although most of these studies were published in Chinese, doctors this February wrote a review article in English to share the results with the world. Herbs were given to frontline hospital workers who treated SARS patients in Hong Kong. None of the 1,063 receiving preparatory herbal formulas got SARS, whereas in those who did not take herbs, 64 of 15,374—0.4 percent—got SARS. This wasn’t the best-designed study, because the herbal group was much smaller than the control group. In a second study, two hospitals in Beijing gave herbs to staff, using Jade Windscreen plus another formula. There was no control group, but none of the 3,561 hospital workers got SARS. A more robust study was conducted during the spread of H1N1 swine flu in 2009. In a population of students, 23,947 got herbs and 1,382 did not. The herbal group was 3 times less likely to contract influenza than the control group.
This year, frontline healthcare workers also received preparatory formulas to prevent them from developing symptoms. And, the governments of 23 out of 31 Chinese provinces issued prevention recommendations for herbal formulas to prevent covid-19. The variety of different formulas recommended included 54 herbs in total. The two most common herbs recommended by Chinese provincial governments were Huang Qi – astragalus, and Gan Cao – licorice root. Also prominent were honeysuckle – lonicera flower and forsythia seed. Lian Qiao – forsythia is a foundational Chinese herb with strong anti-inflammatory effects that also repels several common respiratory viruses; lonicera and forsythia are typically entwined in herbal formulas. In a country where herbal medicine is fully embedded in the culture, likely more than a billion people this winter were taking herbs to protect themselves and cut down viral transmission.
Natural Medicine Around the World
It is no surprise that Sub-Saharan Africa is currently faring better than any other world region besides East Asia. Since endemic malaria occurs more here than anywhere else, West and Central African countries have taken their knowledge and experience of the standard hydroxychloroquine and zinc protocol and simply applied it to covid. Many people in this region already take weekly doses of hydroxychloroquine for malaria prevention. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of 208 million, has recorded only 1,162 covid deaths. Nigeria also happens to account for one-fourth of all malaria cases in the world, more the twice the share of any other country. The Democratic Republic of Congo, which is second in malaria cases, has an even lower death rate.
Data published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons in June shows the stark difference in the fatality rates of covid cases based on countries’ stances on hydroxychloroquine. This sampling of 15 countries showed that case fatality rates were more than 7 times higher in countries that prevent or discourage hydroxychloroquine versus those who allow and encourage its use. Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Russia all had case fatality rates no higher than 3 percent and as low as .6 percent, whereas the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom’s rates were no lower than 12 percent and as high as 18 percent.
Three months after this graph was published, the case fatality rates had dropped in almost every country, likely due to increases in testing and summer buildup of Vitamin D. However, in three countries, the fatality rates increased—South Africa, Chile, and Costa Rica. What happened there? Two of those countries switched sides. South Africa now discourages hydroxychloroquine, and Chile reportedly had already banned it by June. Chile’s covid death rate divided by its total population is 826 deaths per million, which is comparable to the overall death rates in Western European countries and the United States.
Costa Rica widely used hydroxychloroquine after consulting with Chinese doctors in March and had a negligible case load through mid-spring. But after the doubt sowed by the publication of the Surgisphere study on May 22, its cases began to increase. Costa Rican health officials suspended the drug’s use from May 30 until June 8, after the study had been retracted. The virus gained momentum and cases multiplied through August. Could hydroxychloroquine’s tarnished reputation have led to Costa Rica’s outbreak?
Confusion was blocking the door, but a window did open. On June 14, scientists in the United Kingdom reported preliminary findings that an anti-inflammatory steroid, dexamethasone, increased survival in critically ill covid patients. The drug was observed to help only patients receiving oxygen support. Many hospitals in Western countries began using it after this study. Although the study’s result was limited, it was a significant step because for the first time, the wider conventional medical community was starting to realize that for the sickest patients, they needed to treat the immune response instead of the virus itself.
The coronavirus is barely a blip in countries like Thailand and Vietnam. As in Asia, more than 80 percent of people in Sub‑Saharan Africa receive care and treatment from traditional medicine, which is holistically woven into the fabric of society. Many Africans receive dual care from traditional and conventional sources. Herbal medicine use in Ethiopia is as high as any country in the world at 90 percent, and Ethiopians who immigrate carry their herbal traditions with them to their new societies.
African countries also lead active research and development into herbal medicine. The President of Madagascar on April 20 premiered the new Covid-Organics tambavy, or herbal tea, for the prevention and treatment of covid-19. Covid-Organics was developed by The Malagasy Institute of Applied Research and the National Pharmacology Research Center, which improved upon a traditional formula in the laboratory. After brief testing on covid patients, the tea was mass-produced under the auspices of the government and sold for a low cost, with profits donated to the Institute of Applied Research. Soldiers went door to door distributing it to low-income residents, and it was provided to all schoolchildren. By May 12, it was reported that the tambavy induced the recovery of 105 patients. Madagascar’s government provided shipments of Covid-Organics to several countries across Africa, including Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, the Comoros, and Tanzania. Even Haiti received the tea.
Covid-Organics contains ingredients from several Malagasy plants; the first ingredients are artemisia and ravensara. Madagascar grows the world’s largest supply of artemisia, in two species—Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra, sweet wormwood and wild wormwood. Artemisia has bright green, aromatic fronds; annua can dart up to 3 meters each season, whereas afra is perennial and can generate new individuals from itself through cuttings. La Maison de l’Artemisia, an organization based in Paris, describes dozens of bioactive compounds in this herb with antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral properties, and details its possible mechanisms of action against covid-19. Ravensara, a giant tree native to Madagascar, is traditionally used for respiratory illnesses, as a disinfectant, and as a pain reliever.
Death rates per million residents, in a swath of Africa from Guinea and Ghana to Uganda and Kenya, range from an upper outlier of 29 down to less than 1. In fact, Tanzania, a country of 60 million, has only 21 covid deaths at all. For comparison, the United States has 919 deaths per million, Canada 352, and Belgium 1,532. (These statistics are current through December 12.) China, which has covid-19 treatment up to a mature science, has recorded no death from that disease since May 17. The one African country that has been particularly struggling with covid is South Africa, with 387 deaths per million. South Africa has much less endemic malaria than the rest of the continent. Its government has discouraged the use of hydroxychloroquine for covid, and some hospitals refuse to administer it.
Some speculate that Africa’s low covid numbers are due to reduced viral spreading in humid environments. But if that were true, then what’s going on in Brazil and Peru? As it turns out, countries in the Amazon region have about the same malaria case rates as in South Africa. Like many countries, Brazil has been overrun by distorted information about chloroquine, but Brazil also has heavy restrictions on the sale and marketing of herbal products. Only a half a percent of Brazilian people are indigenous, and their cultures and lands are threatened.
The covid problems plaguing Peru, besides structural failures within the healthcare system and poor sanitation, include an unawareness of effective treatments for the sickest people and a low knowledge of indigenous medicine. Peru’s Shipibo-Conibo population, who experienced high coronavirus infection rates, have treated themselves with chanca piedra and matico. Matico, Piper aduncum, is a shrub in the pepper family whose leaves contain more than 50 compounds, the combifusion of which has antiviral and other medicinal properties. One group of Shipibo-Conibo Peruvians has taken matters into their own hands to educate and treat people with indigenous medicine. Organized as Comando Matico, the group developed its own protocol centered around matico leaf tea and a broth with several ingredients including garlic, lemons, eucalyptus leaves, and chamomile. Comando Matico has saved 538 out of 540 patients so far.
Japan has done very well against the coronavirus, and they didn’t lock down their people or implement mass testing to do it. Japan experienced a second wave of cases in July and August, but only about half the people died per day than in the initial spring wave. Japan’s overall covid death rate is the same as Zimbabwe. The astute reader can surmise how they did it: Japan’s traditional medical system, called Kampo, spawned out of Chinese medicine in the mid-First Millennium A.D. and then continued to develop through a unique Japanese lens. Kampo has been integrated into the hospital systems and medical education since the 1950s, and now, 90 percent of Japan’s doctors incorporate Kampo herbs and methods into their practice. Many herbal formulas are covered by insurance.
India has its own ancient all-encompassing system of medicine, Ayurveda. One of the most important plants in that system is tulsi, or Holy Basil. Tulsi is worshipped in India as the plant equivalent of the sacred cow. Most Hindus keep a tulsi plant in their homes, and water it in a sacred ceremony known as a puja. Tulsi tea is traditionally one of the first remedies taken for seasonal viruses. People also use tulsi to treat a variety of chronic conditions and to promote longevity. Clinical studies have shown tulsi to favorably treat metabolic disorders, neurocognitive conditions, and immune function. For example, multiple randomized placebo-controlled studies have shown that tulsi significantly drops blood glucose in patients with Type 2 diabetes. Naturopathic doctors refer to herbs like tulsi and astragalus as adaptogens, because they help the body to resiliently recover from stress and to restore or optimize operation of the body’s autonomic systems. Yogis say that tulsi stimulates prana, Sanskrit for qi.
Ashwagandha is another popular Ayurvedic adaptogen. Ashwagandha, Withania somnifera, has been shown to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress. A collaborative study using advanced computer modeling, published in June by the Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, predicts that the withanone compound from ashwagandha blocks 3CL protease, which is also called the Main protease enzyme because it has essential functions in coronavirus replication. The “CAPE” compound from New Zealand propolis repels the enzyme too. Propolis is a plant-derived substance historically used by bees to give immune protection to their hives. The researchers’ models also predict that withanone blocks the virus from gaining entry into human cells, and they corroborated this with experiments in cell culture. The Indian government responded in July by initiating randomized controlled clinical trials on ashwagandha and three other herbs or poly-herbal formulas both for prevention in healthcare professionals and for mild to moderate covid-19 patients.
Traditional and conventional medicine are also highly integrated in India. The Indian central government is actively encouraging its citizens to take plant medicines for covid prevention. In particular, they are recommending Kadha tea, an ancient medicine whose first ingredient is tulsi followed by cinnamon and ginger. India’s health professionals also recommend Chyavanprash tea to be taken each morning, a comprehensive herbal formula composed of ashwagandha root, tulsi leaf, Phyllanthus leaf, and many other plants with traditional and scientific backing. Ochre-colored turmeric also is advised.
With almost 1.4 billion people and many crowded cities, India’s covid death rate is just 103 per million, and its neighbors Pakistan and Bangladesh are at just 39 and 42. Pakistan’s health systems are in the process of integration. Traditional practices, including Ayurveda, are recognized by the central and provincial governments. Seventy to eighty percent of Pakistanis receive some form of natural medicine. Besides rural traditional healers, Pakistan has tens of thousands of professionally trained Unani practitioners.
The Unani system was developed by Hippocrates in Greece and Galen in the Roman Empire and was strengthened by numerous Arabic physicians. Dr. Abu Al-Zahrawi of Morocco was an inventor of surgical instruments who lived at the turn of the Second Millennium A.D. in the Islamic Golden Age. One of his Unani contemporaries was Dr. Abu Ali Ibn Sina, a Persian born in present-day Uzbekistan. Dr. Ibn Sina wrote al Qanun fil Tibb, The Canon of Medicine, a five-volume medical encyclopedia that served as a standard textbook for centuries. In al Qanun’s fifth volume, Dr. Ibn Sina compiled a pharmacopeia of 650 medicinal compounds. He also studied and wrote about every other area of science, linking them into an overall framework of philosophy and metaphysics. He was a Renaissance man 500 years before the rekindling of inquiry and creativity in Europe. He wrote, “There are no incurable diseases—only the lack of will. There are no worthless herbs—only the lack of knowledge.”
Unani itself has integrated traditions from Egypt, China, and India, as well as Greece and Mesopotamia. Like other naturopathic practices, Unani is a holistic system. Beyond treating the focus of disease, practitioners evaluate the condition of the whole person. They locate imbalances within physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels and give care to restore the person to harmony. Practitioners also consider the individual in relation to his or her environment and community. Presently, Unani is practiced predominately in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and parts of the Middle East and Africa.
Traditional German herbal medicine has deep historical roots in the Germanic culture. Just as Unani physicians understand their study of empirical medical science within a holistic worldview inspired by Islam, Chinese medicine by Taoism, and Ayurveda by the earliest Hindu texts, German herbal medicine co‑developed with Christianity. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th‑Century nun, wrote nine books on holistic medicine—together entitled Physica, containing 2,000 therapeutic remedies and another synonym for qi: viriditas, the life force. Hildegard based her inquiries on existing medical texts and the heritage of monastic medicine – Klosterheilkunde, but acquired knowledge principally through her own original experiments. Hildegard wrote about numerous other subjects, and evangelized the public with her spiritual insights. She was canonized as a Saint and Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. Monastics nurtured Hildegard’s teachings through the centuries and were instrumental in keeping herbal medicine alive in Europe. The Klosterheilkunde legacy lives on to the present, as physicians in Germany and some other European countries routinely prescribe herbal drugs covered by insurance. Germany allows herbs to be sold with the intent of preventing, treating, or curing disease.
Is there any scientific backing of European plant-based medicine? Sure there is, just as happens when every other evidence-based traditional medical system of the world is put to test with the latest methods. A 2017 French experiment examined what would happen if traditional European herbs were combined into formulas to fight pathogens. Against bacteria and viruses, biochemists tested an essential oil blend of Cinnamomum zeylanicum – cinnamon, Daucus carota – wild carrot or Queen Anne’s lace seed, Eucalyptus globulus – eucalyptus, and Rosmarinus officinalis – rosemary leaf. Against candida fungi, they tested Origanum vulgare – oregano, Syzygium aromaticum – cloves, cinnamon, and wild carrot. These formulas showed significant killing activity against all bacteria, viruses, and pathogenic fungi tested. The antiviral blend, in 1 percent solution, killed more than 99 percent of H1N1 influenza within 1 hour.
The German government set up a commission in 1978 to systematize the established scientific knowledge of the therapeutic indications of medicinal plants. They classified 380 herbs. Their work is being continued by the European Scientific Cooperative on Phytotherapy—ESCOP, which has published books with monographs about 108 medicinal plants and counting. These monographs are recognized by the European Medicines Agency of the EU.
Can we learn to trust the herbal teachers? A research team set out to test whether Hildegard was right. Using only the monographs from the German commission and ESCOP as references, they verified 30 correct herbal indications given by Hildegard. This work was limited by the fact that the monographs often only list one indication per herb, whereas current and future research may corroborate additional uses. Even though they were only able to verify a small number of her claims, the researchers found that the chance that Hildegard just happened to guess right was below .00001 percent. The best of these archaic scientists knew what they were talking about after all. The great ones didn’t just work for the people in their own times, to later be relegated to the dusty corners of libraries; they meant for their contributions to serve Us.
Considering the world as a whole, most people do welcome natural health practices into their lives. These are often referred to in statistics as “complementary” medicine, a term that simply means any health practice that falls outside of the Western convention. These statistics exclude people who take only vitamins or mineral pills, without herbs. Major natural health practices include chiropractic care, acupuncture, naturopathy, herbal medicine, tai chi, yoga, and meditation. In Asia and Africa, which house 76 percent of the world’s people, 80 to 90 percent of the population engages in some form of natural healthcare. In Australia, it’s 66 percent.
The Soviet Union banned any alternatives to their institutionalized medical system between 1923 and 1977. Practitioners still continued in secret, particularly in rural areas, though they faced persecution. Use of natural medicine increased greatly in the post-Soviet era, but still faces government interference. In Ukraine, naturopathic practitioners are prohibited from treating infectious diseases and other major conditions.
In the United States, about 33 percent of people engage in natural health methods. More than half of all Americans take vitamins, and about three-fourths take dietary supplements when the entire category is considered. Product quality is therefore a topic of consumer interest. Supplements manufactured in the United States are required to test for microbes and metals, but not for bleach and other substances. Supplements sold in the U.S. do not have to disclose the source of origin of the raw plant materials. Ms. Taylor has seen rainforest herbs be cleaned with bleach or irradiation. “Irradiation can significantly alter the phytochemical profile of the product,” she said. Ms. Taylor emphasized the importance for manufacturers to fully know how their products are harvested, processed, and cleaned.
The U.S. FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research tests supplements for hidden ingredients, a responsible part of the agency’s oversight function. An analysis of an FDA database over one decade found 776 products tainted with pharmaceutical drugs. However, 98 percent of these products in the broad legal umbrella of “dietary supplements” came from three distinct marketing categories that have nothing to do with vitamins or herbs. Reputable vitamin and supplement manufacturers employ rigorous testing to ensure that the supplements contain what they say on the label and nothing else. Many companies test samples of the raw herb as well as the finished products. On-site laboratories use sophisticated technologies such as high-performance chromatography and mass spectroscopy.
Research efforts are underway to futurize testing. The Natural Health Products Research Alliance, based at the University of Guelph in Ontario, is compiling a DNA reference library of botanical ingredients for precise authentication of product quality. The Alliance also aims to identify plant genomic signatures for metabolic markers of human health.
People have been living in North America for at least 30,000 years. Before the United States began institutionally stifling natural medicine in the interest of money, the federal government stifled Native American traditional medicine in the interest of destroying culture. Towards the end of the Indian Wars, in which Native Americans fought valiantly to preserve their freedom, village communities, land, and way of life, most tribal nations had been confined to reservations. In 1883, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs banned tribal traditional medicine and healing practices as part of its broader effort to stamp out Native symbols, language, religion, and traditions. Native Americans were forced to take these traditions into hiding for a half century until these “laws” were overwritten in 1934. Canada also persecuted First Nations people. The 1885 and 1895 amendments to the Indian Act, which forbade religious traditions and cultural symbols, were not repealed until 1951. What was all of this oppression really about? State power forced everyone to adhere to all aspects of the established dominant culture in order to bring the people under control. Does any of this sound familiar?
Native American medicine, as uniquely manifested by the more than 1,000 tribal nations in the U.S., has ministered to the physical, mental, and spiritual health of people for thousands of years. At least 2,800 different plants have contributed. One revered traditional plant with scientific backing is elderberry. The adaptogenic properties of this vivaciously growing shrub have long served human beings, and the extract from blue or black elderberries remains one of the most widely used natural cold remedies in the 21st Century. The several species of Sambucus are found on every continent except Antarctica. Elderberry is high in Vitamin C, Vitamin A, rutin, tannins, and other polyphenols, and recent clinical trials have demonstrated that it reduces upper respiratory symptoms.
The Association of American Indian Physicians has advocated for more integration between traditional and conventional medicine in Native American communities. “Currently, TIM [Traditional American-Indian Medicine] holds a place of high respect among Tribes across the United States. Most of the nation’s nearly six million Indians, both on and off reservations, consult traditional healers for their health problems,” Dr. Walter Hallow wrote. Every culture on every continent, from the Aborigines of Australia to the Celts of Ireland has its own unique system of medicine with one paniform trait: they all harness the healing power of plants.
The Graph
There is a world region where a rich diversity of cultures has led to vast internal differences in acceptance and adoption of natural medicine—Europe. And, this region has enough data to be able to parse these differences. Finnish researchers used 2014 data from the European Social Survey to glean the percentage of people in 21 countries who used at least one natural healthcare practice in the previous 12 months. Besides herbal medicine of both European and Asian varieties, their analysis included chiropractic care, acupuncture, reflexology, homeopathy, massage, and mind–body therapies. The results of the European survey showed that adoption of natural health therapies ranges from 9.5 percent in Hungary to almost 40 percent in Germany. Comparing the covid outcomes of such different societies in close geographic proximity will provide the final puzzle piece to solve the question of whether plant medicine works.
The graph compares the percent of people who use natural healthcare in 20 European countries with the covid death rates in these countries as of September 30. The comparison precedes the autumn “third wave” that has been caused by lowered Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D-literate Norway is now the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of Europe, with 71 deaths per million. Sweden was not included in this visual, because it employed a different strategy to combat covid than most countries. For a variation on this comparison, I normalized the death rates by the countries’ average population density—also known as population-weighted density—to account for how human geography affects the spread of a virus. Population-weighted densities were not available for Norway or Switzerland.
A few European countries have an extent of healthcare integration. An analysis by writer Rebecca Toy has profiled five European countries where natural and conventional healthcare coexist, each with its own twist—Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Austria, and Germany. These graphs show plainly that the countries where natural healthcare has some level of institutional acceptance have fared better than their sicker neighbors. Countries that allow all of the treatments from conventional medicine, such as the Czech Republic and Slovenia, are doing just as well as the top-performing countries, even if their adoption of natural medicine is not as high.
The countries most under the influence of the Western medical establishment, comprising most of Western Europe, are performing the worst. Normalized for population density, four times the percentage of people in these countries died than in surrounding countries with more health awareness and access. In the UK for example, the recommended daily allotment for Vitamin C is a lilliputian .04 grams. However, the UK National Health Service gets credit for recommending that people consider taking Vitamin D supplements as early as this April. The NHS already recommends taking Vitamin D from October to March, although the population may have yet to catch on. France and Switzerland have done better than other Western European countries, because more of their people are taking vitamins and herbs on their own. Normalizing for population density makes Spain look significantly better, due to the fact that a high percentage of Spain’s people live in dense cities. Though low in natural medicine use, Spain did continue to use conventional treatments that other European countries had paused.
The graph has one apparent oddity, on its left side. The three countries with the lowest natural medicine use have low death rates. Poland and Portugal have embraced hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine; Poland manufactures the latter. But Hungary banned hydroxychloroquine. Hungary has explored and begun manufacturing the influenza drug favipiravir, but it didn’t start treating patients with it until September 30. How can Hungary’s low death rate be explained? There appears to be nothing wrong with the study that found that only 9.5 percent of Hungarians use natural healthcare. But further investigation reveals that that statistic is not true. It’s not even close. In fact, the real percentage of Hungarians who use a natural health method is likely 10 times higher. Hungarians have ingested plant-based medicine every day in 2020, in homes and hospitals alike.
“Few countries are as entwined with a spice as Hungary is with paprika,” wrote Matt Bray of PepperScale. It turns out that paprika is so integral to Hungarian life that it’s essentially part of their national soul. They put it in everything, even dessert. (Hungarian paprika varieties are on the sweet side.) They even have paprika museums.
Paprika’s numerous active compounds include a plethora of carotenoids, so paprika comes fully-loaded with Vitamin A. It also contains polyphenols including tannins and flavonoids, and is endowed with special carotenoid subcompounds called xanthophylls. The xanthophylls in paprika strengthen eye health, protect neurons, and may even fight malaria. Most importantly—in terms of coronavirus—paprika’s potent compounds provide the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory support needed for a healthy, gentle immune response.
After 9 months of a very real-life worldwide experiment, this fact impinges upon humanity with the bold resounding clang of Truth: A country’s usage of plant-based medicine is directly proportional to its success in the coronavirus war. Plants work.
Battle Royale
The best thing about adaptogens is that they modulate the immune system. This means that they strengthen the parts of the immune system that kill pathogens, but suppress counterproductive inflammation and over-oxidation. The immune system is a symphony of many molecules—interferons, interleukins, glycoproteins, immunoglobulins—each with its own specialized function. These molecular instruments are played by the neutrophils, macrophages, helper-T-cells, B-cells, natural killer cells, and fibroblasts. When the body is healthy and in harmony, it will conduct the orchestra so that each instrument plays or rests at the right time and in the right way. In a person with chronic disease, oxidative stress, or insufficient vitamin levels, the conductor is gone. The immune cells can manage to get by on their own playing the music they’re used to. But when they have to sightread a new piece of music with unique wrinkles and complex passages—like the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus—the immune symphony gets lost. Experienced plant medicines step in as the conductor to regulate and navigate the orchestra through the music correctly and in tune. The medicine guides the body to kill the pathogen and live to tell the tale. These plants sound pretty smart. That’s the outcome of suites of compounds fine-tuned over millions of years of evolution.
Of course, plant medicines aren’t just immunomodulators. Plants can handle their business against pathogens in the body by themselves if they have to. With so many antiviral plants available to choose from, is there any way for us to glean a science-based insight on which ones will work best against covid-19? While thousands of years of accumulated experience and decades of laboratory studies deserve keen consideration, it is the 21st Century after all. There ought to be some sophisticated digital technology out there that can employ higher intelligence to prognosticate the best candidates to defeat this particular coronavirus. Well, it turns out somebody already thought of that. Dr. Zhang Deng-hai and colleagues from the Secondary Military Medical University in Shanghai performed an advanced computer simulation building 3D structures of SARS‑CoV‑2 alongside the structures of compounds from Chinese herbs. This is known as a molecular docking study. If the compounds are able to bind to viral enzymes or proteins, then the virus is inactivated and can’t replicate. In the researchers’ own words, “We think more detailed knowledge about the direct antiviral effects of different plants would be greatly helpful to the doctors selecting them.” The study was conducted, written up, submitted to a journal, peer-reviewed, accepted, and then posted to the world on February 20. It is one of several such studies conducted in China specifically in response to covid-19.
Essentially, the scientists made a video game that pit the virus against the plants. And we’re going to play it. To construct the virus, the study designer and team used the established 3D structure of SARS‑CoV‑1 as a template, and made adjustments to correspond with the genetic sequence of SARS‑CoV‑2. Concurrently, they sought candidate plant compounds biologically confirmed to be antiviral against SARS or MERS. To find the compounds, they searched the scientific literature in a standard database run by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Second, the team narrowed down the list to include only those found in traditionally used herbs. Third, they checked the compounds for bioavailability through oral intake, to ensure that they can be adequately absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted by the body. This process has produced a total of 13 compounds. Step Four: The compounds are suited up and unleashed into the ring against coronavirus.
Compound #6 goes first. It comes up to the virus and sucker-punches it right in the spike protein! Then, #9 shows up and dissolves the PL protease enzyme, which the virus needed to replicate and make its envelope and and attack the host immune system. Compound #5 slashes the 3CL protease enzyme. Rrrrrip! But the plant compounds are just warming up. Compounds #2 and 3 have dual alligator-snout arms with which they use to simultaneously maul both PL and 3CL. Compounds #1 and 12 incise the virus and strangle its single-stranded intestines. Compound #8 shows up with a saw and scores its nucleobases right off! Compound #4 uses its vise-grip of justice to squeeze and squeeze the anti-life force out of the virus until it goes splat. Compound #7 roundhouse-kicks the virus right out of the ring! Diiiing! Compounds #10 and 13 poke the viral enzymes to pieces. And to finish the job, #11 daisy-cuts every 3CL enzyme in the general vicinity. All 13 compounds scored decisive disabling deeds against the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus. But wait—that was only Level 1.
Dr. Zhang ups the stakes in Level 2: puts the virus into you, and then gives you plants containing these compounds. To select the plants, the study designer and team identified herbs with two or more of the 13 compounds. The team only selected herbs that have been historically used to treat viral pneumonia, which ensures that you won’t get harmful side effects because you’re getting the right plants for the job. The designer is really helping you out, because the plants were checked to ensure that they are absorbed properly by the body. This process produced a total of 26 plants. For good measure, the team performed network pharmacology and discovered that these herbs enrich signaling pathways to fight viral infection, reduce inflammation, and treat hypoxia. The plants also enrich signaling pathways against other infections, chronic disease, and even cancer.
With virus inside, Dr. Zhang begins brewing tea. Twenty-six raw herbs harvested from the rarest hillside with rich soil are placed into a ceramic pot in precise proportions with purified water and then boiled and simmered until all of the active compounds seep deeply into the mixture. Poured into a teacup, you sip the warm liquid. The aromatic palate of flavors seeps into your mouth, warms your stomach, and radiates throughout your bloodstream, capillaries, alveoli. The other Dr. Zhang shows up to watch. He’s happy because four of the herbs are in the Qing Fei Pai Du Tang. (Mmm, licorice!) Now all the doctors are there, cheering you on. The plants gather together for a pregame huddle.
The viruses poke around the nasal passages to kick off their incursion. The plants are in position to receive and we’re underway. The herbs engage! The plant-based offense begins its rushing attack. Chrysanthemum darts up the bronchial tube. She jukes one way, and stiff-arms her way into the trachea. She’s got blockers now! Bossfern and the rest of the plant offensive line make quick work of all the virions they see. Cut, slash, saw, squeeze! Chrys’ turns on the jets and busts through the conchae, and she will go all the way! into the nasal cavity for the score! And she sprays a can of compounds all over the passageway! What a start to this tilt for the plants.
Some virions happen to break through a weak alveolus and file into a capillary. They’ve got their sights set on some endothelial cells, and the virus offense prepares to set up shop in the bloodstream. On first down, a virion breaks through the line, and gets drilled by Xuan Fu! On second down, the viruses try a toss sweep to the right, but Tamarisk Tops takes care of that one. On third down, the viruses get absolutely lit up in the backfield by Erigeron! The capillary walls hold, and the viruses are forced to punt.
Mulberry Root-bark calls the signals, quarterbacking the plant offense toward the virus hotspots, stimulating immune cells along the way. Tight-ends Forsythia and Lonicera keep score to see who mauls the most viruses between them. The RNA from the crushed virions jets into the mouths of hungry macrophages. Now looking down the intrapulmonary airway at a Type 2 cell being attacked, Mulberry goes back to pass. He’s going deep; he throws a long arching spiral, and the ball of compounds is caught by Coltsfoot at the 15 cell-line! Coltsfoot to the 10, the 5, and into a neutrophil for the Touchdown! The neutrophil lumbers over to the Type 2 site and takes care of business. You’re benefiting from a really well-executed gameplan by these plants, and what a roster picked by those doctors.
Now the virus offense is in the replication formation. This is their big chance. They go in motion. Their enzymes are beginning to manufacture R—and the whole factory is blown up by Xuan Fu and Qian Hu! What a play! At this point, the remaining virus clones would be scared out of their minds, if they had minds. In desperation, they pass a ball of virions down toward a Type 2 cell, but it’s intercepted! Intercepted by Licorice Root! He zooms down the lung duct and saunters into a natural killer cell for the slaughter! They’re really pouring it on now! Licorice high-fives the killer cell on the way out. By air, by ground, and by river, the plants are dominating all three phases of matter. To add insult to injury, the plants are going for two. Mulberry hands it off to Chrysanthemum, who spins into the next viral hideout, and spikes the compound ball right into the cytoplasmic end-zone! At the end of the third quarter, it’s Plants 22, Viruses Nothing.
Now the atmosphere is electric in the body stadium. The plant teammates can sense they’re on the verge of greatness. Licorice Root stops by the cooler where Forsythia and Lonicera are taking another drink of virididade before stepping back out into the action. On Coltsfoot, on Chrysanthemum, Aster, and Gingko Seed! The herbs and cells signal and coordinate. The plants gleefully sack every rebel hideout and share the spoils, with the macrophages joyously cleaning up the mess. The plants’ offensive clinic just disassembles the viruses’ gassed defense in the fourth quarter. You’re just toying with the virus now. The virus doesn’t even belong in the same league as you. Everywhere a coronavirus is encountered, it gets sucker-punched, split, carved, and conquered. 36–0! The body systems hum in rejuvenation.
Now a lone virion sent careening into a capillary happens to bump into an ACE receptor. Just as it’s about to insert its spike protein, the entire plant army descends upon it and rips the virus to molecules in seconds! The herbs look all over for their next target, but they can’t find anything. They call out to their teammates in the other lung. Nothing there either! The capillaries are clear too. All the cells are signaling empty! The siren sounds!! Coltsfoot and Chrysanthemum rush onto the lung-field in shrieking triumph! Licorice and Mulberry jump into each other’s arms! Forsythia and Lonicera wrap themselves in a three-leafed Flag! Erigeron makes a snow-angel in recycled-spike confetti! Game Over!! The Plants and People Win!! Coronavirus Extinct.
Vitamin Q
Those 26 plants make one heck of a Championship Team. And, there’s a hot young rookie prospect coming up in the draft. Traditional Chinese medicine, though thousands of years old, is still evolving. Why shouldn’t it? With 400,000 plant species in the world, scientists keep discovering new ones and new properties of them. In 2008, scientists in Taiwan tested several classical formulas against SARS‑CoV‑1 in cell culture. Under the suggestion of botanic experts, they also threw in a popular vegetable—the young, tender red leaves of the Chinese mahogany tree Xiang Chun (Shong Choon). They found that Xiang Chun leaf extract was the more effective than all of the formulas they tested. Xiang Chun’s many compounds include two from our battle royale—kaempferol (#7) and quercetin (#11). The flavonoid quercetin has the highest binding energy to the virus-dethroning 3CL protease enzyme of all 13 compounds, and is the second-strongest compound overall. The researchers who discovered that TGG and luteolin block the spike protein also found that quercetin blocked SARS‑CoV‑1, and wrote that quercetin offers great promise in the clinical treatment of SARS. Might any promoted covid-fighting plants contain both luteolin and quercetin? That’s Right. Artemisia.
What do pau d’arco, chanca piedra, grapefruit seed extract, licorice, rhubarb, isatis, mulberry, honeysuckle, forsythia, holy basil, ashwagandha, matico, and elderberry have in common? They all contain quercetin. Oh and it’s also found in capers, lovage, radish leaves, pomegranates, onions, apples, arugula, asparagus, blueberries, broccoli, buckwheat, chia seeds, cilantro, carob, cocoa powder, cinnamon, cranberries, cherries, dill, dock, fennel, figs, grapes, ginger, kale, lettuce, okra, peppers, quinoa, raspberries, radicchio, black tea, green tea, watercress . . .
Besides its legendary anti-viral performances, quercetin suppresses at least two different cellular pathways that make cytokines. Its anti-inflammatory effect was demonstrated in 8 weeks of use by people with rheumatoid arthritis. Quercetin significantly lowered their pain, which was backed up by reduced inflammation markers in their blood. Quercetin is also a zinc ionophore, the same property that makes hydroxychloroquine so effective. Quercetin is poorly absorbed by the body on its own, so it is usually combined in supplements with the enzyme bromelain from pineapple or phytosome from sunflower oil. Quercetin might interact with some prescription drugs, like bloodthinners, by decreasing the rate at which the liver breaks them down. In numerous human trials on quercetin, side effects were sparse and mild.
Quercetin has been widely sold as an immune-support pill for many years. Doctors in Germany have reportedly been treating covid patients with quercetin in secret. Where would the Germans have gotten that idea? Virginia. Quercetin is part of Dr. Marik’s treatment protocol at Eastern Virginia Medical School. (It’s not in MATH+.) The Swiss Policy Research group discovered this, and incorporated quercetin into their recommendations. Dr. Marik and colleagues published a paper detailing the scientific basis for quercetin in covid prevention and treatment. “There is a tremendous amount of literature supporting the antiviral properties of quercetin,” the authors found, in many different human viruses, studied in cells, in mice, and in people. Quercetin is also suspected to be one of the key cardioprotective ingredients in the Mediterranean Diet.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—DARPA—has been working hard on making cutting-edge treatments for the coronavirus, like growing antibodies to give people six months of immunity, developing particles that outcompete the virus in the body, and building new antiviral drugs. It would greatly help DARPA’s fight if they were reminded of a study they did twelve years ago. DARPA researchers tested quercetin’s power in soldiers undergoing strenuous exercise. They used a supplement from a company that found that quercetin is optimally absorbed when combined with Vitamin C and Vitamin B3, niacin. Their results were nearly identical to what DARPA collaborators at Appalachian State University had found in cyclists just one year earlier. The Director of DARPA testified to a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives on March 13, 2008: “In a randomized, placebo-controlled study, Quercetin helped prevent viral illnesses, like colds and flu, after physical exertion. Following a strenuous three day exercise routine, 50 percent of the control group became ill with colds and flu, whereas only five percent of the Quercetin supplemented group did. This important immune protective effect will help keep our warfighters healthy during training and deployment.”
We are all warfighters now, we who choose to fight. We have already extincted the virus in the mind, and now we will snuff it out of the sphere of matter. The bells of liberty and agency are reawakening the people. The eagle zapped awake shrieks out and thrashes its talons upon the snake. Any remaining rebel bastions of repression will be defied. Anyone found to have knowingly, willingly executed a plot to kill for money or power shall be sentenced to the theanthropic justice of Nuremberg.
We are going to act on the advice of doctors who actually know what they’re doing, and swipe the remainder to the sidelines. Lives can be saved starting tonight with high-dose Vitamin C. Even the sickest patients can be spared. Remember, a person on deathbed given 50 grams of C in 4 hours rose up and walked home. The production of intravenous Vitamin C can be increased to meet the new demand. In the event of temporary shortages of IV-C, health personnel can improvise using store-bought C. The MATH+ Protocol adds essential and accessory treatments for hospitalized patients. The Qing Fei Pai Du Tang deserves additional corroboration. For people with mild to moderate symptoms, America’s Frontline Doctors and Swiss Policy Research indicate treatment with hydroxychloroquine, quercetin and zinc, and add vitamin suggestions for prevention. Chanca piedra, gift of the Amazon, stands ready to serve at the first sign of symptoms. Doctors of Chinese medicine and other herbal systems can prescribe or suggest symptom-specific formulas. Jade Windscreen and Kadha prepare the body to handle viral exposure. The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service advises a protocol of preventive vitamin use for the general population. Dr. Brownstein’s vitamin protocol provides instructions for prevention and treatment. The OMNS and Dr. Mercola agree that covid could be quashed in 30 days with universal Vitamin D supplementation, let alone the other nutrients. In the 1980s, Dr. Stephen DeFelice coined a new word for a food or part of a food, such as a vitamin, supplement, or tea, that has demonstrated medical or health benefit: Nutraceutical. In 2020, nutraceuticals have already saved millions of lives around the world and this December will save multitudes more.
Front-line doctors, nurses, and emergency personnel now have a cornucopia of ways to fortify themselves from inside out. Governments can facilitate distribution of Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Quercetin, and other plant-based preventatives to those who need them most. These relief supplies can be provided free to low-income communities in cities that have been hardest hit. Senior citizens at assisted living centers can breathe easier. Teachers and children—at adjusted doses—grow confident that their school is no place for coronavirus. Athletes and spectators whup the virus harder than the action on the field. The people reclaim the dignity of showing their faces in public, relegating facial coverings to comfort objects. As hospitalizations and confirmed cases plummet, the population reaches protected immunity much sooner than was prognosticated. What happens after 2 weeks if everyone in Los Angeles strengthens themselves with nutraceuticals? With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, SARS‑CoV‑2 can no longer remain on this planet. Now let’s blow this thing and go home.
And now we are become death, destroyer of the expired world.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which developed the first atomic bomb, now houses SUMMIT, recently the world’s largest supercomputer. Molecular biophysicists at Oak Ridge used SUMMIT to screen compounds with the best potential to fight the coronavirus. The researchers employed a special molecular docking strategy designed to be more sensitive in detecting active compounds. They tested for compounds that could either bind to the SARS‑CoV‑2 spike protein or prevent spike from recognizing the ACE2 receptor. Quercetin was one of the strongest compounds SUMMIT identified. This study represents an independent corroboration of quercetin’s anti-coronavirus action with an additional mechanism to those found by the Shanghai team. All roads lead to Quercetin. With such an array of in silico, in vitro, and in vivo evidence of quercetin’s salubrity, and its apparent quasi-ubiquity in vegetal life, this flavonoid deserves a re‑christening: Vitamin Q.
Nature Shall Redeem Us
In preparing for the post-virus world, it is necessary to command certain things, besides the former coronavirus, to be cleansed away. Therefore, it falls upon me to enumerate the conditions of coexistence that the free and just people of the world shall not accept. I rebuke anyone, even God, who has ever been insincere or disloyal. Let us rebuke with sadness those pious ones who assume to speak for the avatars and saviors but who are out of touch with the needs and sufferings of the people. Let us harshly rebuke anyone who dares to consider themself inherently superior to any other being. Let us rebuke by exposing those who accuse their rivals of sins that they themselves live by. Let us rebuke with principled action those who assume oppressive powers not afforded to them by the natural rights of the people. Let us rebuke by making irrelevant those who treat fellow human beings as commodities.
The copper cup of collective consciousness is now emptied, cleansed, and restored. With what to fill this cup? We’ll start from the Beginning. Yogis and physicists alike teach that the Universe emanated from a single frozen point. Spirit vibrated into thought into energy into matter. The Universe is infinite in its potential expression and manifestation among its planes. Astronomers use powerful telescopes to peer deeply into the subtle cosmic microwave light that began shining shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Physicists have made admirable progress in the past decade, detecting the Higgs boson and gravitational waves, but scientific instruments have yet to detect the smallest essences of reality. On the other hand, adventurous and disciplined human beings independent of the scientific attainment of their particular century have peered deeply into their own consciousni and reached all the way to the Source. Just as telescopes are put into space to be sensitive to the faintest signals in tiny wavelengths, free from the artificial light, ions, and humidity in the Earth’s atmosphere, so master meditators devised techniques to shut off the five sense telephones so that they could be sensitive to the finest vibrations of spirit. They beheld the spirit-thought-energy-matter structure that sustains the Universe, and found a level where all souls collapse into one united being. They found that which remains forever unchanged nestled within the change projected from it. The original frozen point that telescopes are seeking across the Universe, these meditators found within themselves.
We each are Rays emanating from our anchors in God, branches on the charter oak of life. Made in the image of the Infinite, each soul ray is potentially infinite in its expression. Just as each molecular compound shines its own unique spectral signature, no two are alike. Each soul has the natural right to fulfill its own potential, in ways that do not impede the expressions of brother-sister souls. When the multitudes of souls wake up enough, they simultaneously behold their united reality at one end and their infinitely varied expression at the other. This is the true meaning of E Pluribus Unum. This is not a poetic pipedream; it is a real unity that exists beyond the mental capacity to conceive it. Sentient human beings realize that in addition to recognizing that an inherent spiritual realm lives inside of them, connecting with whom provides personal strength, declaring the true nature of unity together feeds and strengthens the connections between individuals and the connections that compose the group as a whole. Carved in bronze in the United Nations’ 1980 commemoration medal for the thousandth anniversary of his birth, Ibn Sina counseled, “Cooperari ad utilitatem corporum et humanæ speciei permanentiam.”
And so in the arrangement of societies, if such societies be arranged in accordance with the natural order of the universe, then each individual shines the particular light of that soul’s own unique nature, while synchronously coming together as one people to stably anchor in bedrock said society. The Founders of the United States of America understood these principles. They founded a new Nation upon the Truth that all human-encased souls are endowed by virtue of existence with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For the purpose of securing the exercise of these rights, they established structures of limited government composed of the people, by the people, and for the people. It has been the task of virtuous Americans since the Founding to advance society on the ground more and more to manifest its founding creed. Since the bells of Liberty first resounded, this land has beckoned as a magnet to people from around the world who yearn to chart their own course, to speak and to worship as they choose. The U.S. system has brought forth the greatest freedom, prosperity, and strength of any nation in the history of the world. The principles upon which this nation was founded are just as true in 2021 as in 1776 and whenever you are reading this. “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Huang Di – the Yellow Emperor assumed his position on the Winter Solstice in Chinese Year 0 and legendarily ruled for 100 years. He came to bring peace and virtue. After ten years of war against the Fog Emperor, Huang Di finally emerged victorious. He then united the tribes to forge a new nation. Having secured the stability of the fledgling society, Huang Di retreated to the inner depths of meditation. He withdrew his awareness and qi from the physical universe, transcending troubling emotions and thoughts, until concentrated at an inner center where he united with the universal source and achieved enlightenment. He returned in newfound wisdom to teach his people to live in harmony with each other and the natural order of Tao. In this era, the new nation of China prospered and abounded in cultural and technological advancement. The dialogues between Huang Di and his physicians were passed down as the foundations of Chinese medical theory. Upon death he ascended to immortality.
Heaven
In Heaven, free of the strenuous labours of earth, the soul rests into immense comfort and relaxation. Angelic music and dazzling colored lights radiate as the fresh arrival is greeted by true family and companions reunited, together with spirit guides and Saviors. New friends meet with heightened affection and personal connection. These lightened beings feast on giving and receiving parcels of joy. Time stands still at the star between the eyebrows. Peace soothes softly from the gentle cobalt glow. And in all its majesty, we can still go on to even higher levels of Heaven than this Astral plane.
Subtler realms remain to be unveiled. In the Crystal sphere, souls float together for no other reason than the joy of being together. They live off serving cups of happiness to each other in the serene bond of living calmness. They sustain an unbroken connection with brothersister souls through and with God, regardless of what kind of form they’re inhabiting. It’s a land of endless knowledge and ever-new hugs. And in the highest Cosmic state of soul wakeness, each moment becomes a new joyous thrill, leading to continuous bliss. This peek into the Afterlife could just as well describe Christmas or any of the Solstice-seasonal celebrations as they are meant to be enjoyed.
When the soul dimly awake perceives wholly unanticipated truths, its consciousness expands from its previous box, and these new perceptions produce the feeling of awe. New perceptions of truth can extend on and on into infinity. Awe is direct experience of God. As God is everything, expanding the soul’s awareness forges a living link into further ranges of God’s all-encompassing being. Awe has abounded today. Know that we are in fact experiencing the glory of God. Having thus feasted, naturally one might desire to learn more about God and the ways in which to connect with Him–Her–This. Many people are waiting with open arms to talk about God and explain how God can become known. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” No one person or house of worship has a defined monopoly on God. The Universe is infinite, so God’s form is infinitely customizable. Each soul plugs into God in its own unique way.
As much awe as you have known reading this, I’ve certainly experienced my share writing it. For example: After my research had already led me to re-christen quercetin, I found out that I was not the first to come to this conclusion. The first person to believe that quercetin should be considered a vitamin was none other than its original discoverer. Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi, who won the Nobel Prize for also discovering Vitamin C, detected quercetin after realizing that citrus extracts produced medical benefits that couldn’t be explained by ascorbic acid. Quercetin and Ascorbic Acid work synergistically to enhance each other’s health potentials. They coexist in many foods. They were always supposed to be together.
Healing agents are here with us now. In the 21st‑Century’s integrative health revolution, that begins today, all of the healthcare systems will coexist and flourish. New investments in authentic science will deepen our knowledge of how each plant and practice works. Plant-based medicine and holistic healthcare will return to their rightful place on this planet forevermore. Vitamin C in union with its twin Vitamin Q, yin and yang qi with a jing foundation of Vitamin D, will usher in a new era of chronic health interspersed with acute bouts of healing.
We, the people, will create the enlightened future that we were already supposed to be in. To this end, besides the integrative health revolution, additional scarlet-tanager tenets are necessary to enumerate to conduce the good and joy-seeking people of the world to flourish. We will have confidence to speak that which we know to be true in the public square. We will enable each other, at each person’s own choosing, to reach the pinnacles of individuality without isolation and community without conformity. We will meet the full hierarchy of needs, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, of our brothers and sisters. We will sustain with stewardship and thanksgiving the natural abundance of this planet and the worlds of future exploration. We will compete principally with our own potentials, and help each other to raise themselves to their highest self-expressions. We will radiate a magnetic harmony among all life; elemental, plant, animal, alien and human. We will maintain a society that affords us all the freedom to achieve a balanced existence in pursuit of personal and communal happiness.
Two and a half billion people presently on earth believe that one day, Jesus will return in a flash of Lightning that covers the entire sky. What would he then say? No one yet knows. But Jesus likes to quote something that God said to Moses 3,465 years ago, considering it tied as the most important moral virtue: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Too bad only a pipsqueak percent of people on the planet since then actually listened. Jesus’s life on Earth is an incarnation of compassion. This quality is the precious diamond, squeezed into form at 20 billion Pascals and 2400 degrees Celsius. “I believe that at every level of society—familial, tribal, national and international—the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion,” the Dalai Lama says. Like individuals, each nation has its own unique contribution to give to the world. “Let us pray for harmony among the nations, that they march hand in hand through the gate of a fair new civilization,” Paramahansa Yogananda says.
We will breathe the free air together. The eagle bathed in Spirit soars with intrepid might to fresh vistas of wonder, snake defanged and subdued. The copper cup glistens and hums like a Tibetan singing bowl. The Phoenix of the Third Millennium rises from the ashes to Forge a new Earth, where all may thrive and project peace.
A Turkish study tested the extracts of chamomile, orange peel, and cumin seeds against HeLa cells infected by a mouse strain of coronavirus. The cells were treated soon after viral exposure. The study found that all three extracts stifled the virus, and that chamomile flatlined it. That’s right: the spoonful of tea fed to Peter Rabbit by his mother upon return from his harrowing adventure customizes immunity and kills coronavirus.
And we are come to the finale of our adventure. This is our reward for sticking with nature’s path in our quest for the cure. Our trusty map has led us this far, and the pathway before us now is an arrow-straight carpet-road of lush bermuda grasses bordered by happy dandelions and flanked by gently undulating meadows of field marigolds, a champs‑élysées pastorale. All of us can fit on this path, some walking solo and the rest arm‑in‑arm absorbing the vivacious scenery. The flora is supported by rich black soils borne of the subsurface shale. Brilliant goldfinches sing to the Sun, which perched in the awning sky radiates its bright heat upon all the open land. Time is irrelevant here. Beyond the marigolds, iridescent grackles perch on stands of stately sunflowers. We relax into the marigold shoulders and sunflower arms of this earth-body. All hums with life. Through the sunflowers’ eyes, we can see further playful vistas, hands of sparkling honey ponds speckled with frog-hopping lotuses and lilypads; the ponds condition the air with refreshing coolness. Bumblebees and tiger swallowtails flit casually about the goldenrod on the banks, where field mice frolick serenaded by the summer cicadas. The arms of nature’s bounty broadcast outward with unfurling fingers of further wonders. The path joyously continues for miles without care into the Sun’s zenith.
The fields wave into hills which grow taller and form themselves into smooth azure-tinted ridges. The view contracts from both sides as the foliaged mountain curves draw closer to us. We’re gently ascending. The sky above the ridgetops is the clearest sapphire, from which indigo buntings chirp earthwards. Ash, oak, chestnut, and hickory trees share the slopes with families of stag and doe. Rare mountain milk streams trickle harp-alike melodies towards us, where the forest is replaced with rolling orchards. The incline levels off near our vale, flanked by colonnades of wisterias whose bows flying‑buttress us with clustered cyan blooms. Bluebirds flit and perch in the branches, joined by a chickadee who coasts between blooms along with us. Granite crops out with cream and pink feldspars and blue quartz. The trail has tapered a bit, now bordered by periwinkles and covered in a mat of clovers. And the most precious part of this scene, to me, is the faces of the beautiful souls traversing it together. Quite the taunt would this idyl be without true companions to share it with. The wisterias whisper wisdom to us, and the bluebirds amiably share their secrets with us. Eventide brings a fresh coolness. As soon as it starts to feel chilly, though, a soothing warmth begins wafting at us from the wisterias. Dusk sets in and the Moon in fullness lights our way. Serendipitously, the ground beneath the path begins to move of its own accord, as if by a giant conveyor belt in the earth propelling us forward. We all sit in tranquil repose on the clovers. Some sit in solitary devotion. Those who choose cuddle cozily in loving closeness. The wafting wisterias bend their arches to coalesce over us. In the soft glow amidst the katydid lullaby, we could go on like this forever.
We can feel the two ridges converge around our path into a geologic embrace. As we are conveyed up to the vertex of the Λ, we reach a grove where the trees and herbs and animals nestle two by two in the protective care of this petrine cradle. In the moonlight, we can just see the arch of the tunnel into the rock ahead. This was on the map. In full faith, we sit up straight and uplift slightly our gaze. As we enter the passageway, fresh showers rush upon us from the rock above. We can see nothing, but feel each other’s close presence. The conveyor moves us faster and faster, and we’re zooming. We’re going so fast that we’re about to break the sound barrier, and we do, and then we just let go and float serenely in the great void. No space, no time, no body, no motion. This stillness and peace surpasseth any to be found on earth.
A pinpoint of light appears hence. The light grows and grows and nears until it reaches us and all‑pervasively surrounds us. We inhabit our ephemeral bodies again and stand. We find ourselves between two vertical walls of pure white meta‑sandstone, just a few meters high on both sides of our slimmed path, now a playa of the finest clean sand. We can see nothing above the rock except for the brightest white light that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere. Each of the sparkling little quartz crystals beside us is a portal through which we could create an entirely new universe. Looking inside them, they become prisms reflecting all the colors, quintillions of them. We are being levitated and pulled forward by a magnetic force toward an unseen source. This magnetism is intelligent and knows to keep those who prefer at arm’s length apart and the rest of us squeezed tightly together. From cracks in the crags, pure water is frozen in place in suspended forms, yet there is no temperature here. An occasional snowdrop appears from a vein. An arctic fox rides among us. A peace dove glides above just ahead in pace with us, his head, bright wings and forked tail making a 5‑pointed star. All is absolute silence. We can feel every heart’s distinct signature in our new expanded union. Eternal Now One of you ventures to give us the gift of hearing your celestial voice echo through the lightway. One by one our resounding voices join in and we sing our way to zion. We sing in awefilled anticipation at how our æonian journey will conclude. Each voice in sweet accord is the tine of a new corona reigning rightfully around the throne of the spheres. We levitate further upward. We spot something in the distance beyond the dove. It begins as a tiny red dot. It grows larger and larger. We are pulled towards it and begin to see it take the form of a brick cottage. It draws nearer and nearer. Finish line in view! O the joy!
We rise above the triune terrain and land on an arcadian clearing at the top. Surrounding the cottage are kinkadian gardens of all manner of flowers and fruits trellising and hanging and shrubbering and delighting. The ether bathed in white light has a slight misty feel around the edges, where pine and cedar trees circle the perimeter. The cottage roof is a speckled glinty garnet phyllite. The cottage bricks are the reddest and sturdiest we’ve ever seen, yet also we behold their electrons, and the life energy behind those, and the thought structures inside of that, and the spirit from which it’s all projected. Somehow we can see Saturn and Jupiter shining in the seraphic light just above the cottage. We step forth on the walkway of maple leaves lined with eight pairs of paper lanterns. The individuals in front open the door. Clustered arm in arm, we scarcely feel our feet as we float along the aisle and enter. Immediately the scent of the most comforting chamomile fills us. A person is standing with back to us, tending to the bottomless pot simmering on the stove. Ze is wearing a kind of robe, and appears to be sporting a pair of bunny ears that flop behind zer head. We slide into seats at the broad table. There are seats enough for everyone, and they are the most comfortable chairs you’ve ever sat in, the kind that let you fully relax but prop you up just as much. Our feet sink into the luscious carpet and our eyes gaze up at the gabled wooden rafters and the skylights beaming upon us. On the table are urns of pure water, milk, and honey, and a teacup is placed in front of every seat. The robed being transfers tea into a kettle and comes around the table to fill every cup. When ze gets to your seat, ze fills your cup with one arm, and places the other with fierce tightness around your shoulder and chest and you know in the moment that with these two actions, a bond eternal is sealed. You turn to look, and it is the face of God.
Anything is possible and always has been. A man of astute foresight has said, “It’s going to disappear. One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.” By the Grace of God, that day is today. Nature’s dependable sophisticated many-talented virucidal immuno-conducting champion sunlit plant-based arsenal is the nuclear option to bring the coronavirus to a swift end. Now rip off the mask of delusion, retake our sacred liberty, rejoice at our healing victory, and renew our cherished home.
Bringing this vital information to you has been my sole endeavour for the past 8 months. If you feel you would like to share a little something with me, you can do so here: 
THERE ARE 2 OPTIONS HERE:
From the digital to the postal . . .
The entire financial industry has conspired to prevent me from being able to receive remittance through this website. But they can’t stop we the people. If you would like to send me something, you can mail a check to me at the address below: My bank accepts checks from any country.
Adam Gattuso
P.O. Box 3115
Gaithersburg, Maryland
20885
UNITED STATES
. . . and back again.
Digital cash is set to become a major way in which money flows in the future economy. If you’d like to send me some, here is a set of instructions. The infrastructure is scheduled to evolve, but this method is easiest way to do this in 2020.
1. Set up an account with Jaxx Liberty digital wallet.
2. In Wallets screen, select the Dash currency.
3. Buy Dash with Visa or Mastercard through Jaxx’s secure system. (There is a minimum $11 fee involved,
but this is the only easy way I’ve found to do this.)
4. Send funds to me at this address: Xo1kB1GJHeuvd1xwXH6eGxZn74MHw4qDH7
¡Muchas gracias!
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This volume is dedicated to all of the doctors, scientists, and teachers who have shown us the way.
Many thanks to the doctors and researchers who have contributed their invaluable voices to this writing. Communicating such crucially important knowledge requires the best sources, and I could not have written this effectively without being able to learn from their careers’ worth of expertise and insight.
The photographs on this site are either in the creative commons, in the public domain, used with permission, taken by me, or in two instances from sites that provide informational content to the public. The cover graphic contains a background image taken by Felix Mittermeier. Artwork below contains graphic elements created by Piotr Siedlecki and Karen Arnold.
This website does not constitute medical advice. Instead, I am advising you to educate yourself and make your own life decisions, which may include seeking the advice of a doctor. If you are a doctor, it is my sincere hope that this volume provides the ammunition you might need to rebel against any efforts to prevent you from fulfilling your oath.
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH
– Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775
Happy Solstice
Merry Christmas
Source of Graphic: Dr. John K. Chen, “Coronavirus (COVID-19) and TCM: Scientific Research and Clinical Evidence of Chinese Herbs,” p. 50, updated April 21, 2020.
Source: World Health Organization, World Malaria Report, 2019.
Extinct coronavirus.