When I was in seventh grade, we moved to the sticks. Our home was across the road from a state game preserve, which was literally swamplands. We had no cable, and the primary source of heat was a big woodstove to which I dedicated many hours, stacking wood, carrying wood inside, starting fires in the morning, and keeping the fire burning during the day. The bus stop after school was a quarter mile from our house down a gravel and oil road. We didn’t have Atari and my parents worked. There was only so much trouble to get into.
The single TV channel we could get carried The Rockford Files with James Garner, and so my slacker afterschool routine was to grab a big mug of Lipton instant tea, a bag of pretzels, and plop down on the worn sofa by the wood stove to watch. I’m really not sure it’s fair to call the sugary mixture tea, as it bears so little resemblance to the real stuff. But I loved the salty sweet yeasty flavors of fake tea and pretzels, and couldn’t get enough of Jim Rockford’s misadventures.
Years before the handsome Tom Selleck played Magnum PI, James Garner won my heart. Magmum PI lived the cushy life in a Hawaiian guest house and rolled in a red Ferrari. Rockford was the cranky antihero who drove 1974-1978 model year Pontiac Firebirds, was a wrongly convicted ex-con, and lived with his dad Rocky in a trailer. He got beat up more often than not.
My favorite scene ever was when Rockford flipped his cigarette into the face of a thug. It was supposed to be a distraction, enabling him to land a punch and escape. Instead, the thug didn’t miss a beat and knocked Rockford off his block. It’s not that I liked seeing my guy get beat up. It’s more that I felt validated, like, “Yeah, you think you’ve got it figured out and it never goes the way you imagined. Blam!”
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My Nana took tea to the next level. She would brew half a dozen bags of Lipton orange pekoe tea for-ev-er on the stovetop in a gallon pot whose sole duty was tea time. Then she would dump a little can of frozen lemonade in and voila! Iced tea Marsland-style.
In my late twenties I would make fun of my friend Brett and his tea habits. He wouldn’t be caught drinking tea made with a tea bag. In his cupboard were special decorative cans from Kusmi Tea with names like Prince Vladmir. He had a special tea pot which heated water to just the right temperature for a particular tea, AND he had a timer to brew it for a specified time. It all seemed so precious and pretentious, and I figured, well, unless you were English or a metrosexual, a bag of Lipton was adequate.
Fast forward twenty five years and I think that Brett could make fun of me! In the top drawer of my work desk I have a thermometer and a tea strainer. Teabag tea tastes like cardboard to me now, and there is a time and a temperture for all: two minutes for Sencha, three for green, four for black, and five for Pu’er. 160F for green, 170F for Matcha (and a whisk don’t you know), boiling hot for black. And no burned tongue for me, as it won’t pass my lips until it’s cooled to 140F. Rishi Tea, the largest American importer of organic teas became my go-to supplier.
With the pandemic, green tea went beyond yumminess to essential equipment for survival. I was working evenings at SUNY Upstate in the trauma center, and the drive home at 12:30am was 1 1/2 hours of bleak, cold, darkness. I calculated that I could start sipping upon departure and stay awake on the road, then drink a big glass of water upon arrival home and wash out the caffeine. It wasn’t until I joined Pierre at The Leading Edge Clinic and began learning how to fight COVID, then treat post-acute sequelae of COVID (PASC) and vaccine injury that I realized how important that green tea had been.
There are multiple studies now which demonstrate how the epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) in green tea blocks spike entry into cells. See studies here, there and everywhere. It turns out that after spending hours providing bedside care to sweating, coughing, distressed acute COVID patients, that green tea was not only keeping me awake on the drive home, it was also blocking spike from taking hold in my body.
PRESENT
All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan, made famous by Jimi Hendrix:
There must be some kind of way outta here Said the joker to the thief There’s too much confusion I can’t get no relief
Business men, they drink my wine Plowmen dig my earth None will level on the line Nobody offered his word Hey, hey
No reason to get excited The thief, he kindly spoke There are many here among us Who feel that life is but a joke But, uh, but you and I, we’ve been through that And this is not our fate So let us stop talkin’ falsely now The hour’s getting late, hey
If you’ve read this far, let me reward your curiosity and tenacity by introducing you to Baobab. After eight months of personal and patients’ use, tracking labs and monitoring clinical effect, I think it is some kind of way out of the confusion, and none too soon.
Baobab is a tree which covers half the continent of Africa. It dates back to biblical times, and was important to tribal people in arid desert regions, because both its hollow core and spongy bark could store water. It is an odd looking tree, which produces a large fruit the size of a football, which has a hard shell. When ripe, the fruit is a dry powder which can be mechanically separated from fiber and seeds. Every single part of the tree is useful to humans and animals alike. The leaves can provide forage for wild animals and livestock, the bark can be made into rope, the wood used for fuel, and the fruit for medicinal purposes. For these reasons it is often referred to as The Tree of Life.
Before there were words for these actions, Baobab fruit was antibiotic, antiviral, antifungal, antipyretic (fever lowering), and poison neutralizing. Tribespeople who hunt with poison tipped arrows and spears will mix Baobab powder with water to apply to the entry wound and neutralize the poison so that they can eat the flesh. Baobob has a pre-biotic fiber which modulates glucose metabolism, thus lowering fasting blood glucose levels. The fiber also creates a welcoming environment for an abundant and diverse population of bifida bacteria in the gut.
Baobab also has EGCG.
Last Spring, Pierre was at a conference in Hawaii and I was covering some of his patients. It was serendipity that I saw the labs come back for a family which had decided to measure the spike antibody for everyone in the household. Mom, college-age daughter and high school-age daughter were unvaccinated, with spike antibody (ab) levels of ~7,000, 3500 and 1500 U/mL respectively. Dad is a physician working in a busy outpatient clinic. He received two Pfizer shots, both from bad batches, and was exposed to ongoing shedding while delivering patient care in a healthcare environment. His spike ab was about 100 U/mL. I was stunned, and understood that this was either a lab error or a very intriguing aberration.
I picked up the phone and called this family, speaking with the mom at length. Dad didn’t take any medications, nor did he take any supplements. In fact, it took about thirty minutes to uncover what he could possibly be doing which would result in such a low spike ab level. Finally she said, “Well, there is this drink he makes every morning and takes to work. It has Baobab powder, and he mixes it with stevia and ginger. He only drinks it during the week, and sips it over the course of the day.” Why Baobab I asked? “It has a lot of vitamin C, and pre-biotics, but I’m not really sure. He’s been drinking it for years.” I thanked her and hung up, then spent the next four hours reading papers about Baobab.
As I read about Baobab’s many qualities, and then learned that it had EGCG, I concluded that the Baobab was somehow connected to this physician’s low spike ab level. He was patient 0. Researchers had considered Baobab to control COVID, but as far as I could tell, hadn’t pursued it further. I pulled $500 out of my piggy bank, messaged twenty patients whose spike ab levels were >25,000 U/mL or relatively high, and made them a proposal. Eat, drink, sip, but one way or the other get 1 Tbsp of Baobab in your body every day for a month, and then let’s recheck your spike ab level.
Within the month the feedback started to roll in, and I had my own experience to contribute. I started drinking the Baobab with my morning vitamins. That didn’t go so well, because I ended up with increased paresthesias (decreased sensation) in my toes and feet. After hearing the same story from three other participants in the pilot study, I suggested that we all sip it over the course of the day, like patient 0. The paresthesias resolved.
When the spike ab results started to come back after a month of Baobab, there was a signal. If patients ate it or drank it, there was a slight change in their levels. But if they sipped it, boy howdy! There were drops in spike ab levels reaching 5,000 U/mL over a month. That was enough for me, and I began guiding patients to sip Baobab, 1 Tbsp in 16oz of water over at least an eight hour period.
More feedback with additional patients revealed a few quirks of the therapy. If someone has severe mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), they may need to go low and slow. Well, just about all of our patients have some level of mast cell activation, so I guided everyone to start with adding only 1/4 teaspoon to 16oz of water and slowly advancing. Initially, some patients (including me) experienced some bloating while sipping Baobab. I’ll attribute this to the recalibration of our microbiomes as we build up the bifida.
Labs in patients who were sipping Baobab showed a declining fasting glucose, similar to what we see when we use Berberine. Patients also report enormous formed brown stools with a clean finish, i.e. no wiping necessary, and a sensation of complete bowel evacuation. Gotta love that.
Then things got interesting. We have been treating patients for microclotting for over a year now, and so some patients were beginning to retest. What I saw was multiple signals that unvaccinated PASC patients who were sipping Baobab dropped their microclotting scores by two points in 2-3 months. For reference, it often takes six months on anticoagulation with Aspirin, Eliquis and Plavix for a PASC or vaccine injured patient to drop his/her/their score one point. It would appear that not only does Baobab block spike entry into cells, but also that it helps break down microclots faster and safely. How?
The likely answer arrived a few weeks ago when I was reading a review article about natural products for antithrombosis. I learned that EGCG acts along the COX-1 pathway, same as Aspirin, to inhibit platelet aggregation and activation. Whereas Aspirin has about a 20% effect, EGCG has about a 90% effect.
Why not just take EGCG then? Well, you could. But any herbalist worth his/her/their salt would explain that when you isolate an active component of a plant-based remedy, you leave behind other components which synergize and ameliorate adverse effects. Given what I have seen clinically over the last eight months, my vote is to stick with green tea and Baobab sipping.
Where do you get Baobab? There are plenty of sources online if you want to shop around, as Baobab is an agricultural product.
How do you mix it? If you can make gravy without lumps, you can mix Baobab. I usually start the day by slowly tapping one Tbsp of Baobab into a cup of water as I stir it with a spoon. I smush out any remaining lumps, and then add this to a thermos with cold water, shaking and sipping every half hour over the course of the day. Every time I talk to a patient about Baobab, I take a sip!
What does it taste like? I would describe Baobab as having a mild citrus flavor. If it doesn’t agree with you, feel free to flavor it like patient 0. A few patients have complained that it has given them heartburn, and there have been others who can’t be bothered with the fuss and muss of mixing/sipping. My position it this: Baobab costs about $20 for a 1 1/2 month supply, blocks spike, breaks down microclots, builds up my bifida, lowers my fasting glucose, doesn’t taste too bad, and helps me have a very satisfying poop every day. Sold!
Baobab sipping is an economical way to combat shedding. My suggestion is to prepare your Baobab sipper before you head into any social interaction. Start sipping ahead of time, sip during the event, and continue sipping afterwards. In effect you are delivering a steady supply of EGCG and whatever synergy we haven’t yet isolated in a lab, which is blocking spike entry into your cells. If you are going to travel, bring the powder with you and once you are through airport security, mix it up at the water fountain and get down to sipping. Our patients and team have been doing this for months, and overall the results have been positive.
Cheers!
P.S. If you have ever seen a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, you can appreciate the power of a groovy soundtrack. My wife and I really enjoyed the updated series of Battlestar Galactica, and I’ll never forget when Jimi Hendrix’s anthem showed up in the narrative. Five main characters keep hearing the song in their head, and end up together in the same rom where they realize they are the Final Five Cylons. Internet wisdom says: “The song’s biblical and mythical connections make it fitting for the show, as it foreshadows destruction and leads to a new world.”
P.S.S. I have no financial stake in any of the products I recommend, including Rishi Tea.
Legos were my thing for a long time. Wooden blocks, Lincoln Logs, and Erector Set, we had those too, but Legos kept me coming back for more. The Legos I played with were a mish mash of accumulated sets, with many multicolored and interchangeable parts. They were from an earlier time, before the hyper-specialized Lego sets with more sophisticated and realistic shapes. My most common creations were police cars, fire trucks and tractor trailer trucks. I would dump my bin out on the floor of the rec room and crawl around for hours picking out pieces. The worn holes in the knees of my Sears Toughskins pants were evidence of my dedication. BTW, I flinch at the thought of those Toughskins, which were so not cool. I couldn’t wait to be a big boy and wear the much cooler Levis jeans.
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One of the habits I developed in my Lego trances was to not pay very much attention to my hunger. It wasn’t that I didn’t get hungry, and when I tell you that I’ve long been on a see-food diet, I see it and I eat it, I mean that. But the work at hand had my attention. I was searching for the four circle piece with the car grill on it, or the eight circle piece with POLICE on it, or the black circular twisty piece that connected the tractor to the trailer. If you know Legos, you probably know what I mean. Hunger didn’t hold the same pull as creation.
It turns out that playing with Legos served me well in several ways as an adult. Until I finally got fed up with never getting a break during a twelve hour shift and decided to help lead a unionization effort, familiarity with hunger was the quintessence of my nursing career. I wish that I’d known the value of intermittent fasting before I started my nursing career, as I wouldn’t have been so furious in my hunger.
There are always things to figure out and fix when you’re a nurse, especially in a busy Emergency Department. When the monitor would go on the fritz, the bed stopped working, or the computer refused to cooperate, I would often say, “It’s okay, I played with Legos,” and then set about troubleshooting. Not that I was always successful, but more that I was willing and able to give it a try. This can-do attitude has been invaluable in the uncharted territory of treating PASC and COVID vaccine injury. We are compelled to identify and try safe, repurposed therapeutics to help our patients get better, but because no one person responds in the exact same way, we need to initiate multiple trials of therapy.
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I love France. And French food. And French women. Yes, my American wife of nearly thirty years knows this. It took me four trips to France and some seriously dark moments to finally figure out that French women were bad for my health. I have absolutely nothing against them, and in fact quite the opposite. The way they move the vowels and consonants with their mouths; the way they move period. Their strong scents of perfume, sweat, and food from the magnificent dishes they are creating in the kitchen.
There are three specific French women from my past who come to mind. Brigitte continuosly mystified me with the delectability and variety of what she could concoct from some leeks, a few eggs, potatoes, cheese, and the meat du jour. The fastest path to my heart is indeed through my stomach.
Boy can French women dress. Clotilde’s hair was always coiffed, and she would have just of touch of lipstick. She wouldn’t be caught dead in sweatpants, not even at home. Not when I knew her anyway. The fashion sensibility didn’t stop on top. I’ve never seen underwear and bras like that in the United States. Do they keep the good stuff in France and send the seconds out for export?
French women can pout like no others. I can’t quite catch it in writing, but it’s something like the movement your lips make when you’re blowing a quick puff of air, and make a sound like a pfff. Seriously. I never looked this up, but when I did, there is was. Yup.
1. Pfff
It might sound (and look) a bit silly but this word is a staple of French conversation and used in the right way, it will give your spoken French a bit of native attitude.
Pfff often goes hand in hand with a facial expression that exudes boredom or dislike because it is used to convey contempt, disdain and scorn.
I’m a recovering people pleaser, and pfffs are a way of life in France. Charlotte’s sharp regard and her pfff would slay me. It’s so much worse when it’s directed at you by a beautiful French woman.
Ultimately, French women were just too sophisicated for me. I could not get a handle on “La Seduction”. In case you are as mystified by this as I was, check out the book La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life by Elaine Sciolino. When I read this book in my forties there were more lightbulbs going off in my head than flashes at an outing of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Honestly, I tried to keep up, but ultimately I had to leave it to French men. It seems like they enjoy talking as much as French women. I’m inclined to think foreplay is not four hours of political discourse followed by thirty minutes of sex, followed by another hour of political discourse.
So when did I reformulate my position on French liasons and pin my hopes on an American woman? Well, I came back from France in the Winter of 1994, after months of hard work on a farm, and a misadventure of pfffs, to the warm smile, loving arms and kind heart of the lovely lass who had seen me off at the airport in 1993. Somehow it all came into focus, kind of how the surface of a pond settles into still reflection again after a stone drops beneath the surface.
My beautiful American bride is big-boned, wears a Carhart jacket, and can handily beat me in an arm wrestle. She used to swing a hammer building houses with the boys. She is about the smartest commentator on political events that I know, but it doesn’t take four hours to get to kissing. She has a closet full of flannel and never wears lipstick. She is also a damn good cook.
I will always treasure the picture of her standing in front of a French impressionist masterpiece in La Musee D’Orsay: she was the only woman in the joint wearing a plaid flannel shirt and sturdy hiking shoes, as les femmes francaises floated by in their slim tight dresses and princess flats. As The Rolling Stones sang, sometimes you get what you need.
PRESENT
Three months ago I began leading a Zoom support group for patients who had post acute sequelae of Covid (PASC) and injury from the Covid shots. This wasn’t just an act of charity, because I needed it myself. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but since the age of fourteen, I have been involved in a type of peer counseling, called RC or Reevaluation Counseling or Co-Counseling. The parents of my best friend in high school, the same good people who brought me into the fold of Quakerism, also introduced me to RC. I have spent thousands of hours counseling with others, as well as leading support groups, teaching classes, organizing workshops, and participating in the workshops.
RC dramatically changed the course of my life. It gave me some really important skills around listening and healing. In my 20s I was spending 15-20 hours a week in counseling sessions. I was so dogmatic at that time that I held it out as a make or break requirement of an ongoing relationship with my beloved spouse. Ultimately, I think she has become a much more effective and balanced counselor than me. For me, RC was the Truth, the Way and the Light.
Over time RC lost it sparkle for me. I’ve never stopped using the tool but I found that it didn’t adequately address the issue of suffering. In 2005 when I helped lead an effort to establish an integrated free clinic here in Ithaca, New York I had to back off of my RC commitments. At the time it seemed like a logical next step of putting my learning into action to try and change the world for better.
We all have stories about the surreal way in which our lives changed during the pandemic. The response of the leadership of the RC community and its participants was one of the more bizarre dynamics which I witnessed and continue to observe. Essentially the community bought the narrative. Just like my beloved, progressive, liberal Quakers. That wasn’t as surprising to me as the politicization of the organization and community where Trump became the devil incarnate and people who made the brave choice to not get vaccinated, began to be excluded and treated as if they were not acting rationally. The very organization which I believed was built upon the idea of trusting one’s independent thinking fell for the hypnotism, hook line and sinker.
As I have developed clinical expertise, treating thousands of patients for PASC and vaccine injury, I waded into the online discussions of the RC community to try and share some information. The response was mixed. There was a small number of furtive, private appreciations. There were some very strident, public counter arguments, some of which rose to the level of personal attacks. Ultimately, with some finality, I was instructed by the New York State and national leadership to cease and desist sharing my “opinions” which had no place within the discussions of the counseling community.
In my correspondence with the leadership, it became evident that their perspective was informed by articles in the New York Times, directives from the CDC, articles in Nature, and the guidance of two physicians who participated in the counseling community. One dynamic which surprised me was that people who have known me almost my whole life as a person of blunt honesty and integrity, as well as being a capable clinician, would so quickly deride and dismiss the lifesaving information which I tried to gently share.
One of the most uplifting consequences of my efforts to share was that I became connected with another co-counselor, who has been struggling with PASC. In comparison to the very knowledgeable clinicians within the FLCCC circles and beyond, I think that she is one of the most intelligent, and well informed lay people I have the privilege of knowing. While I have been silenced with regard to the RC community, she continues to persist within the organization to try and communicate the urgency of our predicament in a relaxed and loving way.
One of the immediate lessons that I have taken from this experience is to reconsider the lens through which I’ve viewed the world for most of my life and connection with RC. In essence, people in RC think that they have a corner on the market of rationality, and if they could only get the rest of the world to understand their perspective and utilize their tools the world would become a more peaceful and cooperative place. I think this is actually a very limited and dangerous perspective, which will ultimately lead to a higher proportion of illness and death within the participants of that community as they continue to submit themselves to Covid boosters. It is also a perspective which I need to consciously avoid.
There is no standard of care in treating PASC and vaccine injury, but those of us aligned with the FLCCC Alliance are doing our best to identify the scientific basis for the treatments which we utilize and observe for benefit, neutrality and side effects. Nobody, not even me, is an expert on this subject.
In the meantime, those of us who think that we have some insight that could be helpful to others, face the struggle of effectively communicating that in conversation with the people in our lives. In our support group last week, we spent some time on this subject, and it raises the idea of moral injury. Do we hold our tongue because every time we try to share others reject our guidance and may even break off communication and relationship with us? Certainly, clinicians such as myself, and Pierre have greater responsibility to share what we know publicly because of the ethical and moral commitments we have made to healing. But do you as an individual person have the same level of responsibility?
What we may anticipate—and fear— is that when the day dawns in which the majority of the population understands that we have been duped and poisoned, and are sickening en masse because of that, will the people around us turn on us, and claim that we withheld life-saving information? We won’t know until we get there.
In the meantime, I have a few suggestions. One is to go to the FLCCC Alliance website and become part of the online community there. It is a new initiative to try and establish a virtual space in which clinicians and lay people can engage in dialogue, which is not being censored, and which is scientifically based. Second, I would abide by the idea that we have two ears and one mouth. We should listen twice as much as we speak. Although I am not brief in my Substack, by any means, I try to be brief when there is an opportunity to discuss these matters with an individual.
Respect the innate intelligence of other human beings, give them the space to come to their own conclusions, and hopefully return to you with questions. My need to save others doesn’t override their need and right to exercise free will. Our urgency and strident tone will not persuade people that we are accurate in our perception and ideas about correct interventions.
I learned the hard way that we need to check our egos at the door. I’m still at the beginning exercises of How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay. We need to prepare ourselves with time spent in nature, meditative repose, and prayer, for the tsunami of sickness which is crashing upon us. We can study the dynamics of grief, and attempt to engage in letting go as we proceed forward. Find your people and endeavor to breakdown the barriers between us. Humanity has not survived this long because of survival-of-the-fittest, but rather from tribal cooperation.
Peace be with you.
P.S. Je suis ravi de voir que la semaine dernière il y a deux nouveaux abonnés français. S’il vous plaît, comprenez cela. Je prends une licence poétique pour essayer de trouver de la légèreté et de l’humour dans la narration. J’apprécie profondément le large éventail d’expressions de l’identité française, qui ne pourrait pas être capturée dans un seul article ni dans une bibliothèque pleine de livres.
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When I was 14 years old, I was still living with my mom, stepfather and sister in rural Connecticut. Our family dynamics were acrimonious. We tried to resolve matters with a family therapist who I had known since I was a “hyperactive” little boy placed on Ritalin. Ultimately, he fired us as his clients, because he thought he couldn’t do anything to help us. Not long after that, I ran away and landed at my dad and stepmother‘s for a brief spell. My stepmother was not interested in me joining their family unit and presented me with two options: go to boarding school or go live with your paternal grandparents. To their immense and eternal credit, my Nana and Pop pop had been tracking my misadventures as a young teenager and stepped into the gap to offer me a home. After settling the legal details, my father delivered me to Nana and Pop pop in March 1983.
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Parkerford 1984
The feeling I remember at that time was one of immense relief. Nana had cleared out the contents of a bureau in the bedroom; a bedroom which I had known from infancy, when we woud visit Nana and Pop pop for holidays. The room had bright yellow and orange flowered wallpaper and two creaky twin beds with feather pillows. There were the sounds of the tinkling radiators at night , the creaking springs of the bed as I turned on it, and the smells of old dog, cigar smoke and yummy cooking. I found these all immensely comforting.
There was of course a honeymoon stage. Pop pop and I had always played gin rummy when I would visit, so after I first arrived, we had a routine of playing several rounds of gin when I got home from school. I started to get better and better at cards, and then to beat him, which was incredibly frustrating for him. Within a relatively short period of time our games lost that spirit of playful competition because he would reliably get angry at losing, and so sadly, we stopped playing.
Pop pop’s uniform consisted of navy Dickies pants and shirt that he would wear when he was working on cars. This uniform was the same one he had worn for forty-five years when he ran his service station. He wore a working man’s Oxford shoe with slip resistant rubber soles. I needed some new clothes and so the first clothes I got were similar blue pants and the same kind of shoes from the local shoe store.
I was ahead of my peers in Spanish because of the excellent public school system I had attended in Connecticut. One of the classes I entered midstream was senior-level Spanish. I realize that the students were very gentle with me, considering what a big dork I was. I remember Susan, one of the pretty girls from the field hockey team, commenting without judgment “You look like a miniature version of your grandfather with your work shoes and Dickies.” At the time I was proud of that and didn’t realize it was a social liability. By the time I graduated, I had reinvented myself to such a degree that I was voted best dressed guy in my graduating class. This actually became one of many points of contention between my Pop-pop and me, as he would call me a fashion plate as I headed out for the bus in the morning.
On the way to Best Dressed, Junior Prom 1986
Nana and Pop pop had not been engaged in parenting for 20 years and a lot had changed during that time. Despite the fact that I was a straight A student and graduated second in my class, my Nana remained convinced that I was a drug user, who would surreptitiously drink alcohol at late night parties. Nothing could’ve been farther from the truth, but I think she was watching too much TV. That’s what could happen if all you watch is soap operas and Donahue.
During this time we had to get to know each other as imperfect human beings on a daily basis rather than the grandson and grandparents we each knew from occasional and relatively short visits during holidays. One thing which shocked me was hearing my Nana swear. Keep in mind that she looked like a little old lady, who spent the better part of her day, sitting on the couch, knitting sweaters, and watching soap operas. I was also coming from a household ruled by a Navy Captain for whom uttering the word crap was a punishable offense. I nearly fell off my chair the day I heard my Nana in the kitchen say “Oh shit.”
I also came to feel the tension between my Nana and Pop pop and understood that it had very old roots. My Pop pop at the age of twenty seven, enlisted in the Marines to go fight in the Pacific during World War II. He didn’t have to, and left for uncertainty and danger, leaving my Nana and two young boys behind. During that time, my Nana had what would later be called a “nervous breakdown.” I don’t believe she ever forgave my Pop pop for that, and I don’t think there’s anything he ever could’ve done to make up for that lost time. They didn’t stop loving each other, but that bone of contention was right there between them every day since 1945.
Pop pop had lots of stories that he told over and over. They used to fascinate me as a boy but living with Nana and Pop Pop, and hearing the stories for the fifth, sixth or seventh time was a little bit wearisome. He had multiple phrases that he’d like to use. Some of the most memorable would be “More _____ than you can shake a stick at,” or “I wouldn’t give you a nickel for a box car full of them,” or “I told him to take a long walk off a short pier.” My all-time favorite had to do with gauging the trustworthiness of someone. He would say “If he goes to church check him twice. If he sings in the choir, check him three times.”
My Nana had her own phrases which tended to be darker. I had never heard these as a boy growing up, but they came out in day-to-day life and close proximity. For instance, “More people dead, more blood in the gutter, and no spoon to eat it with.” Or the alarming “Just take me out behind the barn and shoot me.” Or, most relevant to today’s discussion, “Growing old is for the birds. “
When I was a senior in high school, I had the lead in a play called You Can’t Take It With You. I played the grandfather. My Nana and Pop Pop came to see the performance, and afterwards my Pop-pop commented —more than asked. “So that’s what I’m like?” It hurt my heart. I actually hadn’t considered that he would see my portrayal as a representation of him but it makes sense. I played the character as a man who walked as if in pain. Unfortunately, that was actually the case for my Pop pop. If his arthritis hadn’t been so bad, our relationship would have benefited from many walks in which we would not necessarily have had to speak, but could’ve enjoyed each other’s company and God’s magnificent creation.
In the many years since I lived in Parkerford with Nana and Pop pop, my perspective on aging has evolved. I no longer assume that aging inherently involves increased daily pain, loss of mental clarity, and increasing infirmity. Sometimes I wish that I could go back in time and heal my grandparents with the knowledge I have acquired since then.
RECENT PAST
I’ve spent countless hours in counseling, trying to move past the traumas of my childhood. I can accept that at any given time, taking into account all circumstances, and what they experienced as children themselves, my mother and father and step- parents always did the very best that they could do in the moment. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t mess up and that I got hurt.
It was my tremendous good fortune to have known four sets of grandparents during my childhood and adolescence. All of them were exceptional people. Where my parents mistepped, my grandparents filled in to impart what values and wisdom they could to help me in my journey.
I never knew until the day arrived how long it would take me to forgive my mother for the hardest times of my boyhood. It turns out I needed to turn fifty four. She visited Ithaca this last summer. My wife traveled north to visit my stepmother and so my mom and I had the house and time to ourselves. It was probably the most meaningful and delightful time I’ve experienced with my mother in my entire life.
One of the reasons our visit went so well is that my mom was able to listen to me talk about long-haul COVID, vaccine injury, my own experience as a vaccine injured person, and my experience treating patients over the last two years. She has no idea how famous Pierre is and how extraordinary it is that he and I found each other and became partners. That’s fine. I think she has some sense of the exceptional knowledge I have accumulated and how few people on the planet know what I know and do what we do as a team.
As lovely as her visit was, I don’t think I was able to effectively communicate how profoundly her decision to get boosters has affected her health and the pain which she experiences daily. At the end of the day, I’m still her son, not her treating physician. It may be hard to take too seriously the person whose dirty diapers you changed, who sass talked you when he was a teenager, or who has been hot and cold for decades of your relationship. My story is not that different than those of hundreds of other readers, who have felt disconnected and isolated from their families, friends, and neighbors as they become aware of the real dynamics behind this pandemic. I had to leave my home as a teenager to find another home. I’ve had to leave the healthcare system as I knew it, to help create a new healthcare system which prioritizes people and wellness above sickness and profit. I’ve chosen to care for the people in front of me who want my help, when I haven’t been able to protect the people I love.
PRESENT
To use another quote from my Pop-pop, “If I had a nickel for every time a patient told me that they thought their symptoms were simply a sign that they were getting older or out of shape, I would be a rich man.” In a vaccinated or boosted patient, with new symptoms of cognitive impairment, fatigue, muscle or joint pain, I think that we should assume it is spike-related until proven otherwise. It isn’t just because you haven’t been going on as many walks or eating too many Doritos.
In the last week, two different patients wanted to talk to me about a recent video which has Dr. Robin Rose of Terrain Health in Connecticut, and three other colleagues discussing a detox protocol. Robin was an early advisor of the FLCCC. There were many things in the video which I agreed with and which parallel my clinical experience. For example, Robin said that in microclot testing we have lost the controls and the best that you’ll find is a one out of four. In most long-haul and vaccine injured patients you’ll see a three, three and a half, or four out of four. Robin and her colleagues discussed a German study from 2023, which looked at the migration of spike in mice receiving IV injections of spike, and also cellular stains of brain tissue from human autopsies. Both Dr. Suzanne Gazda and I presented in reference to this study way back in May 2023 at the FLCCC conference on spikopathy.
The thing which Dr. Rose said which deserves focused attention is her statement re: triple anticoagulation. She said that triple herapy is very dangerous for many people. In our practice we have treated hundreds of patients with triple anticoagulation therapy. No one has required a transfusion, no one has died from this therapy. There have been a few nosebleeds, requiring an emergency department visit, and several menstruating women whose menses was so severe that we had to double check their CBC, and modify their treatment plan. On the other hand, there have been a long list of extraordinary improvements, and patients’ clinical symptom burden because of the effectiveness at treating microclotting. 99.9% of patients have seen a decline in their score over time. Two patient who haven’t seen this were surreptitiously using collagen which inhibits platelet activation and aggregation, and which I discussed in a previous Substack as a problem.
It is true that there are an increasing range of options for people to address microclotting. Dr. Rose puts forward a protocol which costs about $670 for six weeks of therapy and reports that it is very effective at safely decreasing spike and effectively decreasing micro clotting. In our practice, we have a robust discussion with patients regarding their clinical options. Triple anticoagulation therapy is one option. The range of other options includes enzymes, such as nattokinase, lumbrokinase, serrapetase, Flavay, and Baobab sipping. We have found that ivermectin is an extremely useful component of treating anticoagulation, because of how it inhibits spike activation of receptors on platelets, red blood cells and endothelial cells. The bottom line is that there is no single treatment which is going to work for every patient and these treatments are best delivered under the guidance of a knowledgeable practitioner.
It is equally important that among the still small cohort of practitioners who are treating patients with long Covid and vaccine injury that there is fastidious attention paid to the accuracy of statements which we make which could lead to depriving some patients of life-changing therapeutic interventions. It is always worth raising the question of what the financial interest is of the practitioner who is making such pronouncements. Do they stand to benfit financially from the therapeutics they are recommending? E.g. Dr Bruce Patterson owns the patent on Maraviroc. That doesn’t inherently mean that Maraviroc can’t be useful to some patients, but it’s a very expensive drug and an individual needs to keep this in mind when deciding whether or not to follow his protocol.
I’d also like to point out the risk of receiving care from a provider who is not up-to-speed with the clinical advances in understanding about micro clotting and spikopathy. This week our practice received multiple threatening and bullying calls from an orthopedic surgeon who was upset that his patient had developed a hematoma after major joint repair surgery. He displayed no understanding of microclotting or spikopathy and accused us of quackery. He blamed us for prescribing triple anticoagulation therapy when in fact, it had been ordered by a vascular surgeon participating in the patient’s case.
There are several important points here. The first is that the patient has a very high spike antibody level and elevated micro clotting, and so is much more likely to have a failed surgical procedure because of the inflammation and localized ischemia. The second point is that practitioners across the United States are slowly getting a clue (way ahead of the regulating and recommending bodies) that microclotting is a very powerful dynamic in the clinical setting. The third point is that knowledge about this is readily available for free to any practitioner who cares to stay abreast of the current reality and science based treatments for spikopathy and microclotting. Becoming a leading and trusted source of this knowledge has been a prime directive of the FLCCC Alliance.
Dr Jordan Vaughn has now given three separate presentations at three different FLCCC conferences regarding micro clotting and its treatment. He has safely delivered care, including the use of triple anticoagulation to more than 1600 patients and our practice has done the same with more than 200 patients. A pre-2019 understanding of coagulation is not only insufficient, but even harmful, and possibly dangerous in a physician’s treatment of a patient, especially in the context of surgery. The fact that a vascular surgeon from a conventional practitioner was willing and able to prescribe triple anticoagulation for our patient is a hopeful sign. Nevertheless, buyer beware. It makes sense to screen your providers with basic questions about what they understand about spikopathy, the pathologies that ensue and how to effectively treat them.
As an FLCCC Alliance-affiliated practitioner, I don’t think that we have all the answers. The protocols haven’t worked for every patient. I do think that under the scientific and medical leadership of Dr Paul Marik, there has been a rigorous standard of evidence applied to FLCCC Alliance recommendations and what makes it into first, second and third tiers. In a bewildering sea of sometimes conflicting medical advice, this foundation is invaluable as a North Star for patients and providers alike. Inevitably there will be honorable disagreements among providers re: the best path forward. Spirited discussion of emerging evidence and clinical responses will help lead to the best outcomes. This is the eternal flame, not yet extinguished, of scientific inquiry.
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Everyone has their story to tell. What prompts me to offer mine is in part what I have learned from my faith and practice as a Quaker. Seeking guidance and solace from God, we share when the spirit rises within us, in the hope that sharing benefits others.
My favorite stories have been those which toggle back and forth between the present, the recent past, and the distant past. Also known as history. May I even approach the shadow of the skill of those hard working writers.
I’ll endeavor to post weekly, for as long as the story takes to tell. It will be personal, but intended to lift us up, together.
Today I am partners in a telemedicine practice which focuses on post acute sequelae of COVID, PASC or long-haul; and injury from the COVID vaccines. Our team has evaluated and treated nearly four thousand people since early 2022, prescribing repurposed drugs to keep people out of the hospital, effectively treating acute COVID, and wrestling with the hydra of PASC and vaccine injury. We know what we are up against, and it is daunting. Yet we have managed to learn a great deal, and get better and better at what we do. There aren’t many practitioners in the world who know what we know. There should be.
In February of 2020, I was working as an RN at SUNY Upstate Medical University in the Emergency Department. Upstate is a Level 1 trauma center. In the middle of a shift, I swiftly fell ill, developing a fever, chills, and general malaise. I think that I was assigned to trauma that day. When I told my co-workers that I was having chills and would have to go, they thought I was joking. I knew that I had an hour and a half drive ahead of me, and things were going South quickly. My life hasn’t been the same since. But then whose life is today what it was in February of 2020?
When I was in third grade, I was in Mr Stevens’ class. He wore cardigans, horn rimmed glasses, and drove a faded black Volkswagen Bug. I was the class clown that year. He and I were not friends. We had a beautiful student teacher who I had a crush on; probably most of the boys did. For reasons that my 3rd grade boy brain couldn’t fathom, she announced one day that we were going to have a vote. She wanted to know if the class wanted to be divided up into boys on one side, and girls on the other, or if we wanted to remain mixed together as we had been for most of the year. Boys voted first. Boys wanting to keep it mixed. I raised my hand. No one else did. Then all the other boys voted to be separated, and all the girls agreed. Ms Student Teacher wasn’t done yet though, and said, “Well Scott, it looks like you are the only want who wants the boys and girls to sit together. That’s not normal. The rest of your classmates voted differently, so we’re going to rearrange the room now.”
I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why my classmates would want to lose the connections we had, to begin building walls, to be manipulated by a relative newcomer, an adult, because it would make her life easier. I used to think this was a hurtful event in my young life. Well, it was, but life since COVID has changed my perspective a bit. That early experience prepared me to call things as I see them, to not be afraid to diverge from my peers, and, darn it all, to expect the crowd to be easily lead down the garden path.
