Inflammation and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome

Inflammation and mast cell activation syndrome
(My notes for an interview by Dr John Campbell with Dr Tina Peers)

She learned about MCAS because her daughter suffered terribly with eczema and other symptoms that a doctor identified as Histamine Intolerance and MCAS, and treatment made a huge difference for her.  Dr Peers then began recognizing the syndrome in many of her own patients and providing them with answers, many of whom had given up on ever understanding their various chronic health issues.  Her basic level guidance is for patients to take anti-histamines (blocking both H1 and H2 receptors), supplements including vitamin C (for its anti-histamine property), and following a low histamine diet. 

The world leader in mast cell disease research is Dr Molderings at Bonn University.  Mast cell diseases aren't taught in medical school so it's up to patients to tell their doctors about it if they have it.  There are 2 conditions- Histamine Intolerance, which occurs when a patient doesn't produce enough diamine oxidase (an enzyme in our stomachs that reduces the amount of histamine in our food), and MCAS, which is when a person's mast cells release too much histamine too easily.  Most of her MCAS patients are also diamine oxidase deficient (leading to increased absorption of histamine from food) so they get a "double whammy".  In the medical literature, the incidence of Histamine Intolerance is approx 3-5%, but the incidence of MCAS is between 17-20% (According to Dr Molderings). 

She also does genetic testing with her patients to look at their methylation markers and their histamine metabolism- she finds that her MCAS patients rarely have normal diamine oxidase production (the enzyme that breaks down histamine in the gut) and tend to have KIT gene mutations (the genes involved in coding for mast cells).  There are 50 known variations of KIT genes.  Symptoms and syndromes she ties to MCAS include eczema, rosacea, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), migraine and other headaches, rash, urticaria, psoriasis, IBS, diarrhea, fibromyalgia, other joint problems, bloating, nausea and vomiting, interstitial cystitis, POTS, and are hypermobile.  She says 80% of MCAS patients are hypermobile (may have EDS) and 80% are female, and 30% have interstitial cystitis. 

Dr Campbell gives a simple overview of mast cells- they are a type of white blood cell that resides in tissue rather than circulating.  They trigger an inflammatory process when we want them to, including heat, pain, redness and swelling, which brings increased blood supply and nutrients to a damaged or infected area to help the healing process.  Mast cells store histamine to release when needed, but they also store another 1,000 cytokines.  They are concentrated in areas where our bodies are in contact with the outside world including our skin, lining the nasal passages, sinus passages, and respiratory system, they line the entire GI tract, they line the urogenital tract; she compares them to bouncers at a club who are just inside the door to stop "undesirables" from coming in.  

In MCAS they become overzealous and pick a fight with all sorts of things, sometimes almost anything, that they come in contact with.  When they react (degranulate), they release one or some or many of these different cytokines (often called mediators) and in various combinations, and they can release 350 chemokines which pass messages to other mast cells to join the reaction (this is how you get systemic reactions aka anaphylaxis).  Mast cells also line our nerves, and histamine is also a neurotransmitter.  Mast cells in the stomach (chromogranin cells) release stomach acid.  Histamine plays essential roles in the body, but we need it to be carefully regulated so that we have only what we need, where we need it, and for how long we need it.  

MCAS patients have excessive histamine lingering, as well as other chemicals that can cause bruising (heparin), elastase 2 causes membranes to break down, clotting factors contributing to clot formation.  There is always inflammation and there may or may not be allergic-type reactions, including anaphylaxis, and dystrophisms which are formations of new tissue (abnormal tissue growth).  Examples include cysts, often in the breast and pancreas (can also include skin tags, scar tissue, and fibroids).  MCAS patients can also have poor wound healing.  The symptoms a person experiences will correspond with where the over-reactive mast cells are concentrated, such as asthma occurring in people with abnormal mast cells in the lungs (in these cases inhalers may not work because the mechanism is different).  For people with concentrations of mast cells in their skin, things as simple as their clothes rubbing on their skin or pressure from waistbands can cause itching and rashes or bruising.

Dr Campbell asks, given the enormous variation in presentation, how do you suspect and diagnose MCAS?  Dr Peer responds that you recognize patterns of inflammatory symptoms, they often have sensitivities including to things touching skin such as tags, as well as a very heightened sense of smell and aversion to bright lights and loud noises.  You also have to consider what other conditions might also produce the pattern of symptoms the patient is presenting with.  Testing for cytokines can help but need to be developed more.  The more the mast cells are triggered, the more sensitive the person can become over time.  Infections can make MCAS worse.  She says there is "consensus 1" criteria, which requires a positive blood test for specific markers and rules out many people, and "consesnsus 2" criteria that don't require the blood test. Instead, consensus 2 says that if the provider has a reasonable suspicion of MCAS that they can try some of the basic treatments and lifestyle changes, including some basic medications, and if the patient improves significantly, it can be inferred that they do have MCAS.  

There is a website called "what the bleep can I eat .com" that has a good list of histamine levels in foods.  It's worth noting that there is a lot of innacurate information online about histamine levels in foods.  The site lists about 200 foods that have no, or very low histamine levels.  Some of the very high histamine foods include tomatoes, bananas, avocados, spinach, gluten, tea and coffee, green tea, alcohol, chocolate (the last 3 also block diamine oxidase production).  Processed foods tend to be high in histamine, as well as leftovers (anything being re-heated or left around for awhile) because bacteria present on foods converts the amino acid histidine to histamine.  You can think of a "histamine bucket" in the sense that it takes a certain amount of exposure to add up to the level that triggers a reaction, so a person may get away with a food one day but not another day.  

A person can take diamine oxidase supplements when eating to help reduce the histamine load (DAO supplements)- as an aside, these often contain ingredients that are problematic for MCAS people so be careful with them.  Pea shoots have a high level of diamine oxidase and eating some of them before a meal can also help.  In the big picture MCAS people do best on a ketogenic or paleo diet, with fewer carbohydrates, because these diets are so anti-inflammatory.  In addition to dietary changes, some supplements help, including vitamin C which has anti-histamine and antibiotic properties, and is anti-inflammatory.  Vitamin D with K2 is also important, as is magnesium, CoQ10, l-carnitine (acetyl), and iodine, things to support the mitochondria.  

MCAS people get mitochondrial dysfunction which then limits energy production.  Our cells have thousands of mitochondria in each one- our mitochondria produce 70-80kg of ATP every day (this is because as soon as we make it, it's gone, so it's made at a high frequency). Our mitochondria are 32% of our body weight.  Our heart has the highest density of them, and then the liver.  The post-exertional malaise, the hallmark symptom of ME, is due to mitochondrial dysfunction such that they can't produce ATP at the rate the person's body needs it.  Most of us (in the UK and America?) have low iodine levels in our bodies.  Iodine is important for the glands, including breast, thyroid, thymus, and prostate.  She instructs her patients to take 2 to 3 drops of Lugol's 15% before bed, in water.  It supports mitochondria but it also keep the upper gut sterile, which it should be.  Seaweed is a good food source, surprisingly, fish does not.  

So much inflammation comes from the gut, there are so many mast cells in the gut.  Getting the inflammation in the gut under control is a really important part of getting MCAS under control and managed because the inflammation in the gut spreads to other parts of the body.  As an aside, Dr Campbell mentions that an oncologist he knows has told him that a lot of cancer seems to come from chronic inflammation, including the gut, and that iodine supplementation can reduce the chances of developing cancer.  Mitochondrial dysfunction also seems to be critical in getting cancer, because it's the mitochondria that signal cell death when a cell has mutated and is growing out of control.  Inflammation in the gut leads to leaky gut, which means that whole proteins can get into the bloodstream instead of their breakdown products, amino acids.  Inappropriate proteins in the bloodstream wreak havoc, including triggering allergies.  

The lining of the gut is only one cell thick, and their are mast cells directly behind those cells.  If the mast cells swell, they can cause cracks to form between the cells lining the gut (leaky gut).  The first 20 feet of our guts are supposed to be sterile, but since our modern diets include sugar, dairy, and some other things, bacteria that should be killed are instead being fed and multiplying, and causing inflammation.  Eliminating all sugars and refined carbohydrates would be best for most people, but people with MCAS should be low-histamine ketogenic.  Sugars and carbs are addictive- instant gratification.  We want a microbiome, but it should be in the colon.  Taking iodine won't affect that part of the gut.  Eating in season when possible.  You can break the addiction to sugar in 2 weeks- there is a gene that switches off.  Good probiotics help.

Figuring out a medication regime for each person is a slow process of trial and error.  She suggests starting with the over-the-counter anti-histamines, one at a time, in higher doses than on the box.  Once you've found one that works, add in famotidine, which is an anti-histamine for H2 receptors (mostly in the gut, but also in the heart and brain).  After that, mast cell stabilizers are added.  Quercetin at 500mg 3x a day is easy because it's available OTC.  Prescription meds in this category include Ketotifen (in America this has to be compounded because there is no commercial version for oral use), working up to 1mg at night.  If that doesn't help, there is Rupatidine- people take one or the other.  The third medication is Gastrocrom (cromolyn sodium), that stays in the gut.  MCAS with IBS symptoms tend to do well on Gastrocrom.  Each patient takes their own cocktail of medications and treatments.  LDN (Low Dose Naltrexone) is very helpful for many people with MCAS.  

Dr Peet is also using medicinal mushrooms for their immunomodulatory capabilities, to help calm the mast cells.  She emphasizes that the mushrooms must be very high quality.  Mushrooms themselves are high in histamine, but extracts can be made that leave the histamine behind.  The sunshine mushroom is a mast cell stabilizer, reducing histamine and cytokine release from mast cells.  She recommends the company Hefasta Terra, a Spanish company- their products are organic and tested, no fillers, and they grow the mushrooms themselves.  They also do clinical research.  She recommends Myco Sol (sunshine mushroom) and Myco 5, which contains sunshine mushroom, reishi (balances hormones, lowers anxiety, improves sleep, anti-inflammatory, analgesic), chaga (kills cancer cells), shiitake and mistake (treats mycotoxins).  Lion's Mane mushroom crosses the blood-brain-barrier and can stimulate growth of neurons.

Mast cells can live for 2 to 4 years- some are replaced sooner, but it can take patience to heal from severe MCAS for this reason.  New mast cells can become over-reactive when they enter tissues where the existing mast cells are already edgy, this can perpetuate the problem.  Dr Peet says that CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) from mold can co-occur with mast cells and can look nearly identical to MCAS but she implies that it needs to be considered separately.  Lyme Disease and Epstein-Barr (HHV-5) can also be very similar.  She says you don't want to miss any of those if they are comorbid with the MCAS.  

Tryptase is an enzyme that is released by mast cells when they degranulate under certain circumstances, and is the source of a great deal of controversy in the MCAS world.  In 2012, a consensus statement (consensus statement 1) was put out by some of the doctors and researchers who had been working on mast cells stating that there needed to be an elevation in serum tryptase for MCAS to be diagnosed.  The year before that, another statement (consensus statement 2) had been put out by about 40 of the doctors and researchers working in the field who made a broader definition of MCAS that was based on the patients they were seeing which was more flexible in its diagnostic criteria.  The authors of consensus statement 2 argued that in many parts of the world, it's not always possible to get a serum tryptase level measured, and they noted that many patients who they were treating with success didn't have elevated serum tryptase levels anyway.  Statement 1 excludes many people with the profile of MCAS and denies them treatment.  Many people feel that if the treatment works, that is good evidence that MCAS is present.

Structure of the American Medical System

“Not Medically Necessary”: Inside the Company Helping America’s Biggest Health Insurers Deny Coverage for Care
"America’s largest insurers hire EviCore to make decisions on whether to pay for care for more than 100 million people.  “The Dial”: EviCore uses an algorithm that allows it to adjust the chances that company doctors will screen prior authorization requests, increasing the possibility of denials.
Lucrative Deals: Some EviCore contracts are based on how deeply the company can reduce spending on medical procedures. It tells insurers that it can provide a 3-to-1 return on investment.

"Over the years, medical groups have repeatedly complained that EviCore’s guidelines were outdated and rigid, resulting in inappropriate denials or delays in care."

"Known as risk contracts, EviCore takes on the responsibility for paying claims. As an example, say an insurer spends $10 million a year on MRIs. If EviCore keeps costs below that figure, it pockets the difference. In some cases, it splits the savings with the insurance company.  “Where you really made your money was on a risk model,” a former EviCore executive said. “Their margins were exponentially higher.  Insurers do not make explicit demands for more denials, a former EviCore sales executive said, Instead, they asked about “controlling the spend” — the amount of money paid out on certain procedures, he said. Nor would EviCore always use the word “denials” — they employed circumlocutions like “inappropriate determinations.”

"A 2023 academic study examined the criteria EviCore used to approve payment for imaging of the lower spine in cases of extreme pain. It found the guidelines deficient. Two of five medical experts who reviewed the guidelines even recommended not using them.  ( A critical appraisal of Evicore’s guidelines for advanced diagnostic imaging of the spine for lower extremity pain with neurological features ) "Nine months after starting at EviCore, Miller quit, disappointed by the attitudes of some of her colleagues. “Most of the physicians who work at these places just don’t care,” she said. “Any empathy they had is gone.”

Another way that EviCore reduces costs for insurers is that doctors make fewer reque4sts for procedures.  EviCore says this is because doctors make fewer inappropriate requests, doctors say they give up because fighting to get procedures for their patients is too time-consuming.  Cigna, who owns EviCore, claims that this effect (called the "sentinel effect") occurs because doctors are kept more up-to-date on current procedures.  "Connecticut’s Insurance Department recently reviewed EviCore and Carelon. It found no problems with Carelon. EviCore was fined $16,000 this year for more than 77 violations found in a review of 196 files."

"In 2022, Carelon settled a lawsuit for $13 million that alleged the company, then called AIM, had used a variety of techniques to avoid approving coverage requests. Among them: The company set its fax machines to receive only 5 to 10 pages. When doctors faxed prior authorization requests longer than the limit, company representatives would deny them for failing to have enough documentation. Carelon denied the allegations in court and admitted no fault."

"Lawsuits against employer-funded health plans, like the one Cupp had with United, must be tried in federal court, where case law favors insurance companies. For instance, insurers found at fault do not pay punitive damages, only the cost of treatment."

AMA survey finds prior authorization hurts patients and doctors
"Health systems should also expect higher drug costs. Hospital drug expenses are 12% higher than in 2020. Hospitals also need to get accustomed to patients shifting more toward outpatient facilities, Swanson said." from https://www.chiefhealthcareexecutive.com/view/hospitals-faring-better-than-last-year-but-a-difficult-path-lies-ahead 

Eat What You Kill
This report is about an oncologist named Dr. Thomas C. Weiner who practiced in Helena, MT and essentially built a kingdom there for himself at St Peter hospital.  He was eventually terminated for all kinds of fraud and harm to patients, including extremely excessive prescribing of opiate medications and the seemingly intentional killing of at least 10 patients but probably many, many more- all under the pretense of "providing comfort".  This man comes across as a psychopathic narcissist, essentially a cult leader who used all manner of coercive control and lying to maintain his powerful and extremely lucrative position in the community.  

This phrase refers to a reimbursal scheme at some hospitals in which providers are paid for the value of  the services they provide.  "Adding to a six-figure base salary, his pay was calculated by the number of relative value units, or RVUs, he billed on behalf of the hospital. The system compensates doctors using weighted values for certain types of visits or treatment. It works like this: A doctor might be paid $100 per RVU. A routine physical might be equal to 1 RVU, or $100; a more complicated and time-consuming procedure like radiation therapy might equal 8 RVUs, or $800. In other words, the more patient visits and treatments a doctor bills to insurance, the more that doctor and the hospital earn. Weiner described this system, which is common in American medicine, as “eat what you kill.”

“Comfort” was a word Weiner used often in our conversations. If a patient dies as a result of his treatment, he told me, it’s not unethical if his intent was to provide comfort. In medicine, this is called the principle of double effect. First developed by the Catholic saint and theologian Thomas Aquinas, it’s a set of criteria by which a person can morally justify ending someone’s life. It stipulates that a harmful consequence of a medical treatment, such as death, is permissible if it’s a secondary effect of beneficial treatment, such as alleviating pain with drugs. “It’s for their comfort,” Weiner told me. “It’s not that I euthanize them.”

Can the new CVS CEO handle the Aetna challenge?
This is an article about the replacement of one CVS Health CEO with another because stock value and profitability are the top priorities in how the health care company is run.  The stock price had fallen, due in part to their insurance arm Aetna "Health insurance companies typically aim to pay out about 80% of the premiums they collect for customer medical services. CVS said on Friday that the percentage of premiums spent on medical services had risen to 95%."

CVS Health slashes infusion services offerings, blaming industry headwinds
"More than 3.2 million Americans receive some type of infusion therapy each year, according to Bourne’s research. The figure is expected to grow over the upcoming years, as the population over 65 years old is projected to double in the next three decades, chronic disease continues to rise and the Food and Drug Administration green-lights new injection-based drugs."

"Nationwide nursing labor shortages have hit the infusion industry hard because infusion therapy can require a 1-to-1 nurse-to-patient ratio and must be performed by nurses with specialized training, according to Bourne Partners.

Training requirements can push compensation for infusion nurses up 10% to 20% higher than nonspecialized nurses, the consultancy said, straining provider budgets.

In 2022, CVS Health closed 36 of its 71 Coram clinics and laid off 2,000 employees including dietitians, nurses and pharmacists. A KFF News report attributed the closure to high overhead costs associated with providing infusion services, labor costs, reimbursement delays and supply shortages."

The Growth of Private Equity in US Health Care: Impact and Outlook

Newsom sides with health care industry in rejecting rules for prescription drug middlemen, hedge funds

After private equity takes over hospitals, they are less able to care for patients, top medical researchers say

The Aftermath of COVID 19 Policies and Mandates

Lawsuits regarding the COVID vaccine mandates:

Settlement Reached in Navy COVID Vaccine Lawsuit
A class action lawsuit that included 4,300 Navy seals and sailors who refused to comply with the mandate to get a COVID 19 vaccine for religious reasons was settled, correcting their service records to remove the charge of ignoring a lawful order, and protecting them from discrimination in the future in regards to promotions.  The settlement also includes payment for the cost of legal fees.

Transit Workers Denied Religious Exemptions for COVID-19 Shots Each Awarded $1.3 Million
"Half a dozen transit workers in the California Bay area who were fired for refusing to take COVID-19 shots were awarded approximately $1.3 million dollars each by a federal jury. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) employees filed a class action suit in October 2022 after they were denied religious exemptions and or accommodations when they requested religious exemption to the COVID shot mandate, which was made a condition for employment.

The jury was presented with the question, “Has BART proven that the plaintiff could not be reasonably accommodated without undue hardship?” The jury resoundingly said no and found that BART failed to demonstrate undue hardship when they refused to provide accommodations to the workers. The jury also found that six of the plaintiffs clearly showed a genuine conflict between the shot and their religious beliefs and awarded $7.8 million in damages to the plaintiffs."

 

How "Anti-Abortion" Laws are Pro-Death, not Pro-Life

Reproductive care is health care in more ways than many people have thought through.  The fact that anyone can consider the anti-abortion laws that exist and that are being planned as I write this to be "pro-life" is a sign that life has already become so devalued that it's loss isn't even seen or recognized when it comes to pregnancy and birth.  The lives of women, both in terms of quantity and quality, are invisible, as are the lives of their families and other children and the children they may have had in the future.  If the goal were to reduce the number of pregnancies that are ended intentionally or that end in accidental ways, the solutions would start in other parts of society- we would take meaningful steps to reduce rape and to support pregnant women so they could afford to have and raise a baby unexpectedly.  We would be horrified at the extremely high infant mortality rate for black babies and other babies of color and take immediate steps to provide optimal care for those babies to bring the death rate down.  We would ensure that pregnant women receive appropriate prenatal care and that infants received the care they needed in the early years.  There are many, many things that we would do- but not only do we not do those things, we are allowing our health care system to degenerate such that more and more babies and pregnant women are losing their lives.  Anti-abortion laws, as they stand, are in no way "pro life". 

A Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a “Crime” to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital
"Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.

Neither had wanted an abortion, but that didn’t matter. Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecution, prison time and professional ruin.

ProPublica is telling these women’s stories this week, starting with Barnica’s. Her death was “preventable,” according to more than a dozen medical experts who reviewed a summary of her hospital and autopsy records at ProPublica’s request; they called her case “horrific,” “astounding” and “egregious.”

A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments.
"The 35-year-old’s death was preventable, according to more than a dozen doctors who reviewed a detailed summary of her case for ProPublica. Some said it raises serious questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to diverge from the standard of care and reach for less-effective options that could expose their patients to more risks. Doctors and patients described similar decisions they’ve witnessed across the state.

It was clear Porsha needed an emergency D&C, the medical experts said. She was hemorrhaging and the doctors knew she had a blood-clotting disorder, which put her at greater danger of excessive and prolonged bleeding. “Misoprostol at 11 weeks is not going to work fast enough,” said Dr. Amber Truehart, an OB-GYN at the University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health. “The patient will continue to bleed and have a higher risk of going into hemorrhagic shock.” The medical examiner found the cause of death to be hemorrhage."

"But because D&Cs are also used to end pregnancies, the procedure has become tangled up in state legislation that restricts abortions. In Texas, any doctor who violates the strict law risks up to 99 years in prison. Porsha’s is the fifth case ProPublica has reported in which women died after they did not receive a D&C or its second-trimester equivalent, a dilation and evacuation; three of those deaths were in Texas.  (E)ven in cases like Porsha’s where there isn’t a fetal heartbeat or the circumstances should fall under an exception in the law. Some doctors are transferring those patients to other hospitals, which delays their care, or they’re defaulting to treatments that aren’t the medical standard.  Texas outlaws abortion from the moment of fertilization; a record showing there is no cardiac activity isn’t enough to give physicians cover to intervene, experts said."

"Staff are familiar with misoprostol because it’s used for labor, and it only requires a doctor and a nurse to administer it. To do a procedure, on the other hand, a doctor would need to find an operating room, an anesthesiologist and a nursing team. “You have to convince everyone that it is legal and won’t put them at risk,” said Goulding. “Many people may be afraid and misinformed and refuse to participate — even if it’s for a miscarriage.  (F)or example, legislators added an update to the ban for patients diagnosed with previable premature rupture of membranes, in which a patient’s water breaks before a fetus can survive. Doctors can still face prosecution for providing abortions in those cases, but they are offered the chance to justify themselves with what’s called an “affirmative defense,” not unlike a murder suspect arguing self defense. This modest change has not stopped some doctors from transferring those patients instead of treating them."

Texas women denied abortions for ectopic pregnancies file federal complaints against hospitals
 "The hospital's intervention was too late, her attorneys say. Her ectopic pregnancy ruptured days later, leaving her bleeding heavily and in blinding pain. She was transferred from a facility in Burnet County to Ascension Seton, where she was told she was "bleeding out," according to the complaint.  To save her life, doctors removed her right fallopian tube, leaving her with lower chances of having a successful pregnancy in the future."

“These women are proof that exceptions do not make abortion bans less dangerous, even when they are exceedingly clear," Beth Brinkmann, senior director of U.S. litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in Monday's news release. “It’s impossible to have the best interest of your patient in mind when you’re staring down a life sentence. Texas officials have put doctors in an impossible situation.  Numerous Texas OB-GYNs and medical associations have said that the severe repercussions, combined with the state's abortion ban's complicated wording, leave doctors hesitant to administer treatment."

"Texas Alliance for Life in monthly news releases has highlighted that one to 10 "medical-necessity" abortions have been recorded in Texas each month since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to an abortion established in Roe v. Wade. More than 50,000 took place each year between 2008 and 2020."

North Texas woman says her baby fell on a Dallas freestanding ER floor after she gave birth
In a state with anti-abortion (so-called "pro life") laws, it is horrifyingly ironic that this baby nearly lost her life due to such utter disregard for human life.  The US has a profoundly disturbing history of such incompetent treatment and such complete lack of basic care for black women and their babies that the infant and maternal death rate is many times higher than it is for white mothers and babies.  This just highlights the hollowness of the so-called "pro-life" movement who are nowhere to be seen when it comes to these excess deaths.  In addition, this level of care is the "new normal" in America as we allow private equity and profit-based health care to destroy the health care system and leave only the most minimal skeletal remains, all in the name of short-term value extraction.

Corruption in the US Healthcare System and its Effects

The healthcare system in the US has been plagued with various forms of corruption and morally abhorrent practices since its inception.  Most of these factors aren't know to most Americans, who have a very simplistic understanding of how our system was created and how it works.  The influence of money and power has shaped many aspects of the system from how medical schools function, what they teach, and who they train to the formation of the American Medical Association and how it pushed its rival associations out of the picture.  

Large scale changes in the types of health problems facing the American public began in the 1960s with the recognition of auto-immunity and the meteoric rise in prevalence of auto-immune conditions, which remain poorly understood and for which treatments are not very effective or reliable.  A similar rise in prevalence in atopic diseases- diseases involving allergic and allergy-type responses- began not long afterwards, beginning in the 1980s.  Cancer rates have skyrocketed, and there has never been an area of research in which more money has been spent and yet so few advances have actually been made.  Many of what are claimed to be advances have more to do with playing with statistics and altering definitions than with actual improved patient outcomes.

Medical research has increasingly been funded by sources with vested interests in the outcome, calling into question the neutrality and validity of the results.  Research has become slewed towards drug development rather than other types of prevention and treatment which might be more effective and safer but are less profitable.  The encroachment of private investment into medicine has reached its peak destructiveness in the form of private equity investments that are doing little more than buying up hospitals, medical practices, pharmacies, insurance companies, and other medical businesses, raiding them for their assets, and then leaving the carcasses in bankruptcy.  This has jeopardized the safety of most Americans and led to more deaths and serious harm than we will ever know, just so that the already obscenely rich can become slightly richer. 

Sanders Says Senate Hearing Will Put 'Greed on Display' With or Without Healthcare CEO

A company called Steward Health Care has made massive profits, paid its private owners millions in dividends, and the CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre paid himself $4 million and purchased a mega yacht thought to be worth $40 million, while incurring massive debt and driving all 31 of its hospitals into bankruptcy.  

Further, "On Thursday, CBS News reported that in 2017 Steward executives including de la Torre illegally conspired with Maltese officials in order to secure a hospital contract, according to a whistleblower.  While a spokesperson for the executive denied any wrongdoing, whistleblower Ram Tumuluri alleged in a complaint to the U.S. Congress that "in touting Steward's supposed competitive advantage in Malta... de la Torre boasted that he could issue 'brown bags' to government officials if necessary to close transactions."

Medicare Advantage is rife with corruption

Medicare Advantage plans 'intentionally using prior authorization to boost profits': Senate report

Physical Symptoms of Stres and Trauma

Windows to the Soul: How Trauma Negatively Impacts Your Eyes
Our bodies have a clench and withdraw response if we can't fight or flight, such as when we are children.  This entails tensing up, clenching fists, curling inward, raising knees to chest, essentially curling up in the fetal position.  Physically, this posture is an attempt to protect the vital organs from anticipated harm and  is associated with feeling helpless.  Muscle tension is one of the most common symptoms of stress and anxiety, caused by muscle contractions from going into the fight/flight response.  This includes the blood vessels and viscera constricting as well and when this muscle tension goes on for a long time, as in chronic stress, and can result in headaches, pain behind the eyes, TMJ, limited range of movement, joint discomfort, chronic pain, and difficulty concentrating.  It can lead to migraines when the tension releases and blood flow into the brain suddenly increases.  

"Energy flow in the body is managed by contractions of the diaphragms (there are many diaphragms in the body).  For children with Complex Trauma, the high arousal of stress is managed through powerful, chronic contractions in all the diaphragms of the body, most promisingly in the respiratory diaphragm (affects breathing) but also in the diaphragms at the base of the skull and in the eyes (Tentorium cerebella), feet and joints.  This changes the depth of their breathing and affects their breathing, but it also creates pain in their face, head, and eyes."  All eight of the bodies diaphragms constrict when they sense stress or danger.  

"Fetuses and infants are primarily visceral systems and central nervous systems without a developed musculature.  The only protective responses to them are to shut down and freeze (clench and withdrawal) the central nervous system and the visceral system" - Larry Heller

Trauma also affects the eyes by making them hypersensitive and affecting pupil dilation.  Trauma in young children activates a part of the brain stem called the Reticular Activating System (RAS) whose job it is to filter out the sensory input that the individual doesn't need to be consciously aware of all the time, such as textures of clothing or hum of lights.  In children who have experienced trauma, the RAS will allow through more or even all of the sensory input into the brain which can overwhelm the brain and lead to sensory processing problems and sensitivities.  

At 11:09 there is a slide that outlines the four kinds of eye movements.  When a person perceives danger and their sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight system) is activated, it causes certain changes in the eyes and how they focus that leads to tunnel vision.  This is so that the person can focus on the threat, which is the only important thing in the moment.  The pupils in the eye normally got larger or smaller depending on light, but when a person looks at things with certain emotional charge, such as fear or surprise, their eyes widen even more.  This response is especially strong in children who have experienced trauma.  For people with PTSD, their pupils have been found to stay the same when shown novel images and to dilate more than normal in response to scary images.  This can cause older people to have difficulty driving at night because their pupils don't constrict when they see bright lights, including headlights or streetlights.  

The parasympathetic nervous system, also called the rest and digest or rest and repair system, has the opposite effect.  It allows your pupils to contract in bright light, it improves up-close vision, and it increases tear production, which keeps the eyes more comfortable and less irritated.  

In infants, the eyes play a key role in their ability to do the basic things they need to do to survive- they need to communicate, to connect with safe caregivers, and to regulate.  "Scientists have discovered that signals pass back and forth between a mother and child as fast as 1/300th of a second."  The eyes contain a massive amount of information about the state of our nervous system, and looking into a caregiver's eyes gives a baby the information it needs to read the emotional state of the caregiver, which is what regulates the nervous system of the baby.  The baby is looking to see if the caregiver is attuned to them, accepting of them, present, open, loving, nurturing, regulating, and safe to connect to.  In general we use what we see in people's eyes to read their emotional state.  

In a family with generational or complex trauma, the baby may not see those things in the eyes of their parents.  Instead the parents may be distracted, fearful, distant, uncaring or cold, not accepting of the baby, basically dysregulated not safe to connect to.  This creates fear, panic, and rejection in the baby.  At first the baby will try to get the parent's attention to connect by crying, reaching out, or other means.  If that doesn't work the baby will either shut down and dissociate or become dysregulated and cry.  This can lead to emotions of anger and fear building up in the child that will affect them later.  

In complex trauma this is happening over and over every day, which causes the child to go into the clench and withdraw response.  This can affect the eyes in a number of way.- It can make it hard for the child to make and maintain eye contact- the child might be afraid to look into eyes and see rejection, disgust, anger, disinterest, or the child may be afraid that other people will see the dysregulation in their eyes, they may have internalized shame, and they may want to hide their inner world.  Another effect is that the child's eyes may take on a "glassy stare" as if they are looking past people, not paying attention, not focusing on who is in front of them.  They might even look catatonic.  They may make intense eye contact that is unnerving because they aren't trying to connect, they're studying the person they're looking at to see if that person is safe or about to change moods or harm them.  This is a kind of hyper vigilance.  This video also claims that people who were in the clench and withdrawal response often as children may have a more sallow complexion around their eyes.  Some people, in high stress, may even develop eye tics.

So, what can people who experience the negative effects on their eyes from trauma do about it?  One thing is to pay attention to muscle tension in your body, pay attention to pain that indicates clenching, and take steps to relax and release the tension.  You can have someone you trust look into your eyes and tell you what emotions they see there.  Practice eye contact with someone you trust to become more comfortable with it.  intentionally unfocusing your eyes can help you "turn on" your parasympathetic nervous system and help you relax.  Somatic therapies that include things like music therapy, pet therapy, yoga and breathing exercises, walking in nature, all can help by putting you into the parasympathetic system. 

 

The Birthplace of COVID 19

Discussions about one of the most important topics in recent history, the origin of the COVID 19 vaccine, have been censored from the beginning.  This goes against the everything that science is and stands for.  When you see censorship, you know that science had been abandoned and is not present in any form.  Science is a methodology for answering certain kinds of questions, it is a method for finding things out.  There can be no per-conceived ideas of what the answer should or shouldn't be, can or can't be.  Scientific inquiry is always guided by observable evidence, NEVER dogma- no matter what the implications.  Science does not take sides.  It was obvious from the beginning that the question of where COVID 19 came from was not being investigated in a scientific manner, that the process of inquiry was being guided by dogma and personal interests.  

There were obvious signs all along.  One is the term "wet market" itself, which was used to conjure up images of dirty and unsafe handling of food animals, one that played on western racist ideas of Asian people eating "disgusting" and exotic animals.  The name "wet market" is essentially a translation error.  A long time ago, there were food stores that sold only dry goods, and stores that sold fresh food as well, and ended up being called "wet markets" because "wet" is the opposite of "dry".  So a "wet market" is a food market where fresh food such as fruits and vegetables and meats are sold.  Any farmer's market in the US is therefore also a "wet market".

It is of vital importance that we figure out how COVID 19 came to be and how the pandemic happened, both because people need to be held accountable if there was any negligence or wrongdoing, and because we need to do everything we can to minimize the risk of a pandemic such as this happening again.  Understanding the viral origins of the pandemic is essential.   

Origins of COVID-19: An Examination of Available Evidence
Full Committee Hearing  June 18, 2024
Homeland Security, Governmental Affairs
"The COVID 19 pandemic was one of the worst public health crises our country has ever faced.  We lost more than 1 million Americans to the virus."

The following are comments made by Dr John Campbell talking about these hearings.  He points out that the evidence doesn't point towards a natural spillover event to explain the origins of COVID because the virus would have popped up at various places and times, which it didn't; we haven't found an intermediate animal, we haven't found an evolutionary history of the virus, and there are no antibodies to the virus in the natural reservoir.  What the evidence does show us- gain of function research was being done at the Wuhan lab, evidence including e-mails was intentionally destroyed, and open scientific inquiry was not allowed.  This is the video in which Dr Campbell talks about the hearing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEyRQLEmNGk&list=PL00DD377C0ACD51FB&index=8

Testimony of Senator Rand Paul:
Contents of e-mails that have been recently made public by FOIA request include:

"The lab escape version of this is so friggin' likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work, and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario." -Christian Anderson 

"Ian Lipkin stressed the nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess regarding the possibility of inadvertent release given the scale of bat coronavirus research pursued in Wuhan.  

Bob Gerry said "I really can't think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus, or one very similar to it, to COVID 19, where you insert exactly 4 amino acids, 12 nucleotides, and all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function.  I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature.  It's not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the gain-of-function research we know was happening at Wuhan."

Ralph Berrick (a world-famous researcher of gain-of-function who collaborated with Dr Shi at the Wuhan lab) said "So they (the Wuhan lab) have a very large collection of viruses in their laboratory and so as you know proximity is a problem, it's a problem." 

"Dr Fauci himself, privately acknowledged concerns about gain-of-function research in Wuhan and mutations in the virus that suggest it might have been engineered, just days before he commissioned the proximal origin paper.  Despite these private doubts, publicly these so-called experts and their allies were dismissing the lab leak theory as a conspiracy.  Within days, Anderson, Lipkin, and Gerry were putting final touches on what would be remembered as one of the most remarkable reversals in modern history.  In their "proximal origin" paper, these scientists concluded "we do not believe that ANY type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."  Privately they were saying one thing, publicly they were saying another."

Media went along with this and censored discussion of viral origins that didn't support the official story.  Information and evidence was withheld by researchers and people in the federal government from the public and from congress.  One example is Dr David Morenz of NIH deleting emails regarding early discussions and then commenting "I think we're safe now" to Peter Daszac at EcoHealth Alliance.  NIH and HHS have withheld documents regarding gain-of-function research from congress, despite congress passing a law to make the evidence public.  The people involved are saying there wasn't gain-of-function research but won't allow anyone to look at the supposed discussion.  "This has been a deliberate, prolonged effort to deceive the committee about certain gain-of-function research experiments that the agencies have been withholding.

"What we've found as we've gone through this is that at every step there's been resistance, so the hearing today is to try to find out whether or not we can get to the truth.  Do we know for certain it came from the lab?  No, but there's a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab.  Do we know viruses have come from animals in the past?  Yes they've come from animals in the past.  But this time there's no animal reservoir, no animal handlers with antibodies, there are a lot of reasons why...there are indications that this could well have come from the lab".  He goes on to say that there will be scientists from both sides presenting evidence, and there should be a spirited debate.