11th May 2020
I was asked by Russia Today to write an op-ed on what had been happening to me in my work over the last couple of months. It has appeared on their website https://www.rt.com/op-ed/488075-nhs-made-covid-19-crisis-worse/ This is what I wrote:
‘A slow and botched response’: how my eight weeks on the COVID-19 frontline taught me how the NHS made this crisis worse.
No PPE, no tests, no support. I work as a GP in care homes and a hospital setting, and watched in horror over the past few weeks at how the approach we took to tackling the virus caused my elderly patients to die.
As with most people, COVID-19 seemed a long way away to me in January. I was working as a GP in out of hours cover, and in Intermediate Care. This means rehabilitating elderly people following accidents or illness, who need support and medical attention before going home.
All was calm at the start of the year. Yes, China was going into lock down, a few people had become trapped on cruise liners, posting interminable on-line videos. Would COVID come here, to the UK? The NHS was untroubled, slumbering.
I went skiing in France, in the Grand Massif, in the first week in March, when COVID still seemed a distant thing, unlikely to change my work, or my life. I suppose it was like sitting on a mountain, being told that a bank of snow was forming that might eventually form an avalanche and head my way. But when I looked out of the window, the sun was shining, the sky was blue. Nothing to see.
I knew no-one who had COVID, nothing much was going on. I had seen no patients with the disease, but in early March the avalanche was striking Italy, and the sky above was darkening. Was it really coming here? I watched Liverpool getting knocked out of the Champions League by Atletico Madrid. Then Spain locked down. Then…
Then the cases in the UK started to rise. Suddenly, this was getting serious. What exactly was this disease? Was it like the flu, was it something else? As the avalanche began to rumble, hospital managers began charging about at high speed, bumping into each other and bellowing instructions – often directly contradictory. We had bronze meetings, then silver and gold meetings. The clipboards were all out.
Almost instantly things had gone from placid to panic, panic, panic. On the TV news, we could see hospitals were getting overwhelmed in Italy. The elderly were lying, dying, in corridors. Ventilators, we need ventilators. We need more capacity in the hospitals, we need beds. Like a slumbering beast, the NHS had awoken. More than a bit late.
Money started to get thrown around – as if money could suddenly make more beds in the hospital, or more staff, or create new nursing homes – or open those that had been shut. The bullying began. Of course, it wasn’t called bullying, but hospitals needed to be cleared out and nothing and no-one was going to get in the way. Edicts were handed down, orders barked.
In our little world, we were commanded to discharge our hospital patients as quickly as possible, to send them back to their families or their care homes. The two nursing homes where I look after patients, started to fill up with new patients from hospital, often COVID positive. Staff had no PPE; barrier nursing was impossible. Early warning signs. I made my concerns about this clear.
Essentially, there was a single objective for the NHS: Get the hospitals clear of patients. We absolutely had to have capacity. Social workers were told to find beds for patients in the community, no objections were allowed. Then lockdown happened, staff were going off sick all over the place, because someone in their household had symptoms of COVID.
However, if a member of staff developed symptoms – everyone else had to stay at work. Because… a virus at home was obviously completely different to a virus at work. At this time there was no swabbing, no testing, so no-one knew who was infected, and who was not.
This was when we all became aware that expediency, and targets, were clearly overwhelming any safety concerns. Staff had little, or no, protection. The PPE that was deemed to be necessary – was whatever PPE was actually available. The guidance could change three times a day.
All of a sudden, in early April, the elderly patients I was looking after started to die. One day, there were no cases, then, 24-hours later, we had many. The deaths were strange, quick. One nurse watched four patients develop exactly the same symptoms. A fall, then strange absences (short-term loss of consciousness), then their breathing rate going up and their oxygen levels falling. The patients were remarkably calm, not distressed. Then they died. Two before ambulances could even get to them.
More staff started to get symptoms, patients were getting symptoms, still no-one could get a test. The only people being tested were those, very ill, arriving at hospital. Why? What did it matter if they Covid, or not? They were ill, they needed the correct treatment for their symptoms.
What difference would it make if they had a diagnosis of COVID?. It was the managers that needed to know. It seemed that research statistics were more important than protecting the staff. We really needed to know.
Early April and the local hospital was now, virtually empty, wards lying silent, elective surgery halted, cancer treatment stopped. By mid-April, the emergency Nightingale hospitals were also empty. Well, the primary objective had certainly been met. The hospitals were clear.
All this time, our care home beds were being filled up with COVID positive patients (many having been discharged or turned away from hospitals), and patients who had not been tested, but could be infected. Here we were, with the elderly vulnerable, in our care. The absolutely most at-risk population. Piling them in. Every time I coughed, I wondered, have I got it? I started popping an oxygen monitor onto my finger on a regular basis. Was it dropping? What’s my temperature? What’s my pulse rate… luckily, nothing changed.
In out of hours care at the hospital, things had become very strange. Across the corridor, A&E staff were twiddling their thumbs. The number of patients arriving to see a doctor had fallen through the floor. Pods were created to see those patients who did arrive. Pod being a fancy name for a Portakabin with a non-closing door. What was our PPE? A surgical mask, non-fitted, gloves that split, and an almost immediately disintegrating plastic pinny.
But yes, this was all that was required, according to Public Health England. Until better PPE arrived, then suddenly that was what we required instead. Then it ran out, and we didn’t need better PPE anymore. Back to the disintegrating pinnies.
In the nursing homes and Intermediate Care, my objections to filling up beds with COVID positive patients was beginning to have some effect. Rather too late. Our rehab unit has beds for thirty patients; ten were COVID positive. Eight died, and seven staff were tested positive. On the positive side, moves were being made to clear the unit, to turn it green, free from COVID.
Then came the problem of death certification. What should I write? COVID, or not COVID? Who knew, because still no-one was being tested in nursing homes. Not patients, not staff. Pure guesswork. By this point, even the national news was recognising that Care Homes were the new front line of COVID. Further edicts rained down, four or five new protocols a day.
Where are we now. Things are calming down, becoming clearer. The world of panic is rotating more slowly. What went wrong? We all know that, in a crisis, things can go haywire. Things that, in retrospect, look idiotic. Idiotic decisions.
The main thing that went wrong, I believe, was a failure to understand that hospitals would become the vectors for COVID, the epicentres for the infection. We – the hospitals, the decisions taken by the NHS managers with their clipboards – spread the disease, especially among the elderly vulnerable in care homes. A disease that we were trying to stop… killing the elderly and vulnerable.
I believe it a terrible indictment of our system that it become obsessed by a target. One that ran roughshod over our duty of care for those in our care. The primary rule of medicine is Primum non nocere. Not primum nocere.
Post note: Since I wrote this article a few days ago, the Swedish Government has apologised for not protecting the elderly. Yes, the UK was not the only place where stupid things were done.
Sweden apologises for failing to protect older people
“We failed to protect our elderly. That’s really serious, and a failure for society as a whole.” Sweden’s government has apologised for not protecting older people, with 90% of the country’s COVID-19 deaths occurring in the over-70s.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/coronavirus-latest-at-a-glance-may-10
Can we expect such an apology in the UK? Well, with all the airlines going bust, there may be more opportunity for squadrons of flying pigs to fill the air. The reality is that Sweden has grown-up politicians, who have grown-up ways of dealing with things – including that rarest of things… apologising. In the UK we still have a bunch of overgrown schoolboys in charge.
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
Thank you for this one. Doubt the UK government knows what “apologise” entails. Over 60s will still be under lockdown and not allowed to fly.
Great article Dr K but so so sad and criminal.
You must be tearing your hair out at the idiocy your surrounded by.
Take care/ Jeanie.
Thank you
Ponderous, as in ‘normal’ outbreaks in care homes such as enteric, flu, staph etc., we lock down the home, isolate the residents, localize care providers to only specific sections of the home, don the PPE – yet all these first principles of outbreak management were ignored – I said it before…ponderous
I felt cross and asked my MP to ask my GP surgery what they were doing behind closed doors because GPs too seemed to take odd steps. The website said the doors were shut, no appointments, if you are ill don’t call us, don’t go to hospital, if you really think you are ill ring the NHS line so they can decide what to do with you. What on earth were they doing in their fort? They have so far not answered my MP.
To be fair to GP surgeries, our experience has been very different. The surgery phone lines are open and telephone consultations with doctors are arranged. Blood tests are still done by the practice nurses and it is possible to see a doctor for anything serious other than Covid 19. I don’t know what more they could do without putting more staff and patients at risk.
I can second this as I work in a GP practice as a receptionist. We have been open throughout answering patients calls and all who ask to consult a Dr get a phone call. If needed they are asked to come down to the surgery to be seen. Our nurses are still carrying our blood test, injections and dressings. As reception staff we are taking patients forehead temps at the door (we wear PPE for this and also give a visor to patients coming inside) The plan is now to extend this further for Long Term condition reviews.
You help anyone whos is in need and the chinc virus is not a problem unless you drank he Kool-Aid. No masks, no social distancing and her immunity, period.
It was all forecast with uncanny precision, nearly 40 years ago, in the “Yes, Minsiter” episode “The Compassionate Society”. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751815/
Jim Hacker is appalled to discover a brand-new hospital, fully-staffed at great cost, which has not had a single patient and does not plan to admit any.
When Jim demands explanations, he is calmly told that the hospital runs much more smoothly without any of those troublesome, inconvenient patients. While its real purpose, providing employment, is more easily accomplished.
Some of us may remember the saying of Jesus, that “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath”.
Shouldn’t we also believe that the NHS was made for people, not people for the NHS?
I’m not sure Tory governments are particularly bothered about employment, if their track record since 1979 is anything to go by.
I will not give you an argument about your pre-conceived position. We all have them.
It is worth pointing out though that in 1997 the Tories were paying off debt – yes children governments can balance the books. Perhaps not enough been spent on the NHS or Education, but spending within our means.
By 2010 we were spending around £80bn per year structural over-spend before the crash which added the same again. It is easy to buy jobs with money you don’t have – now the Tories have the same trick. OR think they have.
Oh! and remember all those nice hospitals that built on PFI which the taxpayers will be renting for decades to come.
PFI, was quite a large cock-up for schools and hospitals. It was though, a nice little earner for some builders, but not all. Carillion, underbid to win contracts and was another great mess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillion I was a governor a while back, the contracts for PFI were such that schools were unable to make even simple quick decisions over maintenance because they had to go through a service company. And had to pay what ever was demanded.
On governments balancing the books, I’m not quite sure of your point? Are you suggesting that a sovereign government, with its own currency, should live within their means (what ever that is)?
DavidR is this a reply to my comment? The date I mentioned was 1979, the year Thatcher was elected, not 1997. I agree about PFI though.
Surely the truth is that the NHS has been subjected to endless ‘reorganisations’ and managers have incresed both in numbers and salaries.
The situation you describe with lack of PPE and lack of testing, clearing of hospitals et cetera is no different from what we have seen here in the Netherlands. We have private health insurance, as opposed to your national NHS. It would seem to me that government is to blame. Our safety regions warned already 5 years ago that we lacked adequate materials and response in case of a pandemic. Nothing was done. Obviously no one wants to spend money when a calamity is not upon us. So in short, I believe it is somewhat unfair to lay the blame squarely and only with the NHS. We have governments that should look after and take timely action to ensure the nation’s
wellbeing. Stay safe
I agree, it was not just the UK, or the NHS, where elderly people with Covid were flung into Care Homes, this seems to have been a problem around the world. Which does not mean it was not a complete disaster and failure of planning.
Failure of Planning? Or maybe that was the plan. Thin out the old ones, save money.
‘Thinning out the elderly’ is quite a scary idea but one that is frightening when one follows the ‘warp speed’ tracking of a vaccination – not much real research and the barest mimimum of testing – (not even animals) – it appears that it will be let loose in poor countries on captive human guinea pigs. Bill Gates lauded ‘humanitarian’ work will indeed make a great dent in the over-population problem – but sssh! this is not knowledge for public consumption!!
Sadly – Spot on Val
Some people are calling this a plandemic. Now if you look at this as a great way to make lots of money with a vaccines and even better mandated vaccines for all then you begin to wonder about the whole thing, especially in light of ‘Event 201’ just a few weeks prior to the so called first case. Bill Gates Incorperated would benefit greatly by this. He has to be the biggest pusher of vaccines of which I posit that he knows precious little. He is not a Doctor or a scientist or an immunologist and yet he seems to hold great sway in health decisions. And the new vaccine touted to be the wonder of the century, never done before – an mRNA vaccine. Mmmm! I wonder what could possibly go wrong.
Take a look at Dr. Judy Mikovits, I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting..
Jan Dawe: Yes, an mRNA vaccine is truly scary to contemplate. Corona viruses may very well be entirely immune to successful attack by vaccine, as heretofore those which have been developed have proven too lethal to license. An mRNA vaccine will create GMO humans. Alarm bells should be ringing because of the following facts: 1. Anthony Fauci holds the patent for the (Gates-funded) one being trialled in Seattle. This trial (and all the others for fast-tracked Covid vaccines) has skipped the crucial phase one safety and efficacy component, animal testing. 3. Anthony Fauci was instrumental in NIH giving an eye-watering $486 million grant to a failing biotech company, Moderna, to develop his vaccine (Moderna has a great deal of investor money, but has yet to produce a commercially-viable product, not for lack of trying). 4. Anthony Fauci also promoted the Dengue Fever vaccine which killed 600 children in the Philippines. A very dangerous man.
Indeed, one wonders at the fore-knowledge of the US government. Look through this Presidential Edict, and notice the emphasis on – urgently – moving towards a ‘shorter response’ technology(s) for future, pandemic VACCINES.
(As a side note, despite his signature, there is no way I can accept The Donald either wrote it, or properly understands the ramifications of what’s contained. It’s nowhere near his language!)
– Note particularly the date…
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-modernizing-influenza-vaccines-united-states-promote-national-security-public-health/
Billy Goats & Co is financing SEVEN factories for vaccines-in-development, and the idea is to pick the better ones and produce those in abundance. Assuming of course that they are safe, and suitabley effective. – In “18 months” – He’ll need a miracle of Production if he’s to realize his plan to vaccinate the human race. – That’s 7.8 BILLION
Imagine if he only gets TEN per cent (population of Europe), 740 Million eagerly awaiting the Medical Messiah, and at what co$t to governments or people ? – Try $100 to $200. per jab, and perhaps another one next year…and the year after that ?
I make it 74 with NINE zeroes. $74,000,000,000. – double that for $200 per course.
Great little earner… and no doubt all of that money will be re-cycled back into his charitable ‘foundations’ to increase the Good Work.
No wonder he has delusions of grandeur .
The acid test with a vaccine doesn’t take place in the lab with an antibody assay, but out in real life next winter when the SARS-CoV-2 rolls back into town.
From what happened to the lab ferrets and the SARS-CoV-1 vaccines, this could be an excellent way to ‘harvest’ all those consumer units no longer needed thanks to Automation.
That’s why the minute I had finished reading your post, I sent it to the Canadian Health Minister, the Ontario Premier, Ontario Health Minister and Health Canada with the subject line: “This could be said by any doctor in Canada–please read. I hope they do, in fact, read your column and are moved by it. As for me, I felt almost nauseous and on the verge of tears as I read it. Very well written from a first person perspective–thank you.
P.S. if anyone is interested in signing the ‘Millions Against Medical Mandates’ that Dr. Tenpenny discusses, here’s the link: https://mamm.org/ The more signatures the better and it’s for North America and outside the U.S./Canada as well.
Watch this discussion featuring a hospital worker who witnessed the other side of what you’ve described. Complementary and chilling info. (Try at 1.5 speed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR8AMfSuKFY&feature=youtu.be
Dear Doctor Kendrick
I thought posts were limited to three a day, if short. Some are still posting up to thirteen times today!
May I also beg for a no politics rule?
I sympathise about the politics Mr Chris, but everything is political whether we like or not.
The blog is political, this entry in
particular.
I would love to know what you think would be the better approach since it seems clear that this is just round 1. I am in the US and have two sisters in long-term care situations. I live in a small town and our hospitals are mostly empty since our cases are mercifully small, though at an admittedly huge economic cost from an effective and early lock down. But a serious surge would have easily overwhelmed the local resources.
“ In the UK we still have a bunch of overgrown schoolboys In charge.” A REALLY fitting description.
If I were a schoolboy, I’d be offended.
Yes, but they are thankfully not overgrown.
I remember reading somewhere or other not long after the general election that we now have a very inexperienced government. It might be okay, but heaven help us if anything serious comes along. Well something serious has come along and just look at the mess we’re in. Last night, the blonde bluffer doing his Churchill act on TV and just confirming in effect that they have not a clue what to do. All too little too late.
After the BB told us we could drive from home to exercise freely, we here in Cornwall are bracing ourselves for an influx of possibly C19+ holiday makers and second home owners into a county with, so far, a low level of infection. (as far as we know – no testing, so how can we really know) but limited resources to deal with a serious surge in infection, AND an ageing population to boot.
Hey, though, what the hell. We’re in Cornwall, we can fight them (the viruses, not the visitors) on the beaches. That’s because we are all staying aware. Yay!
Same thing will happen in the Welsh Mountains and on the Welsh beaches…
That would be terrible, it could mean any tourist businesses still surviving may have a chance of recovery.
Well I gather we will not be welcome over the border in Wales – SO……..
I don’t disagree about inexperienced, but do you seriously think Corbyn could have done better?
I doubt Corbyn could have done better because it’s the system. A new person placed inside a poor system will only become part of the system IE there is no change of the system.
It’s a shame that we seem to vote for a person when in fact we should be voting for a change in the system.
Neo-liberalism rules, and we will continue to consume – Food which makes us fat and then drugs which cure the fat etc, etc… And so it goes on and on and on
The system is designed for and only knows consumption.
Can’t wait for a vaccine to consume!
Definitely YES
Sadly, I think the target was to avoid any risk to the NHS from covid cases lest it show up the underfunding of the frail structure being put in place by the Tories over the last 10 years to enable asset stripping. It was really ‘Protect Johnson’. Medical staff become heroes, and heroes often die ‘fighting’. It has all been seat-of-the-pants panic government by slogan unravelling a bit now.
It is usual refrain and not entirely untrue – but in actual fact the UK spends pretty much the median amount of the top 15 countries in Europe and even before Covid-19 Boris had promised another £20bn.pa
It is easy to propose we spend more money we don’t have – and the NHS is a money pit.
But for the money we get less doctors, nurses and beds. Go figure as the Americans say.
You mentioned that the UK spends the median amount of the top 15 countries. I did a quick search on Per Capita spend on health, UK is well below many, for example;
In dollars;
UK – 4,192
Germany – 5,551
France – 4,600
Yes, we are above Spain and Turkey but those differences when compared to Germany and France as a percentage per capita are large and in the wrong direction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
It’s possible the info in Wikipedia is incorrect and it was in 2016 but not sure what other data there is?
I wouldn’t argue Steve – but BoJo threw them another £20bn coming up. Money won’t solve it though.
I would not consider the difference between the UK and France significant.
Between Germany and the UK, the difference certainly won’t pay for the 3x difference in ICU beds and ventilators.
My economic expectation was that the true single payer NHS would be more efficient, easily making up for the difference. The German system is insane if you think about it. About 80% of the population are insured through the public system, either . The insurers are co-ops, and there 105 of them. If you make less than k€ 56 pa, you must join one of them, but you can switch once a year. If you earn more, you may still join. The insurers compete for healthy and high-earning members, and they compete on the payroll tax (8-9% for employees and the same again for the employers) and elective procedures that go beyond the legally required minima. The other 19% are in the private system, which again consists of 45 corporations, most of which are for profit. Civil servants on a life tenure are insured through a mix of private insurance and direct reimbursements through local, state or federal government.
GPs and consultants are usually self-employed. Clinics and hospitals are run by cities, counties, states, churches, non-profits, and there are some for-profit chains (Helios, Asklepios). The states will pay for infrastructure, i.e. for hospital buildings, and for basic operating costs (emergency services, country GPs). The public insurers negotiate rates collectively for services and medications. There has been a change towards case payments, so that hospitals or doctors do not profit from unnecessary treatments or mopping up after their own mistakes. Private rates are typically 2-3x higher and are strictly by service. This leads to widespread overtreatment.
Now tell me this is more efficient than single payer!
Sorry Eric, but another $408 per capita per year would easily have paid for 3 times the number of ICU beds and ventilators. The question is what is included per capita, if it’s only adults then in 2018 there were around 52 million. So 52million times $408 is, I think, $21billion per year.
In terms of the model, I don’t know the answer.
I still believe the biggest opportunity is to look at the whole system and see it as a systems thinking problem.
Targets which really took off under Tony Blair and labour have a huge detrimental effect, on health, education and the economy. They direct behaviour and generally don’t work apart from the simplest situation.
So the target, protect the NHS is set, and in so doing, it kills the people! A blunt directive and a clear target.
Wonderful!
Steve, I agree on your conclusion that being target focussed is usually dumb and certainly was in this case.
I don’t think I can follow your math. It is not just a question of building ICUs and filling them with beds and ventilators. The wards have to be staffed and the staff be kept current. Also, the equipment needs to be maintained.
The actual numbers for ICUs pre crisis are here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/#f549a4b7f864
The thing is that all those ICU beds were 90% filled prior to the crisis, and that probably means a lot of expensive treatments were also being performed. How did the German system pay for all of this on just 32% more money? I bet about 30% of the health care money in Germany is blown on doctors and assistants and administrators on documenting, billing, and fighting insurers over reimbursements, on insurers paying for the bills and marketing to get attracitive, i.e. healthy and young and well-payed members or customers. And let’s not forget the dividends to stockholders of for-profit hospitals and insurers and bonusses to managers. And I can bet you the CEOs of those 105 semi-public co-ops also want their bonusses, as do the directors of non-profit hospitals.
I simply refuse to believe the German system can be so much more efficient simply because there is a tiny bit of forced competition between insurers. Speaking of which, customers of private insurers are essentially captive because the rainy-day-savings their insurers have made for them cannot be fully transfered, nor is it easy to return to the public system once you have opted out. So not so much competition after all.
Eric,
Wow, the German system sounds a lot like the American one.
I’m fairly sure it’s not how much you spend but how wisely you spend it. And wisdom is missing where political needs are the principal drivers of policy. I agree with Steve Prior it is a structural problem — a “large-organizational-behavior” problem — rather than a “current party-in-power” problem.
Poor management is an equal-opportunity affliction of Labour / Tory / Democrat / Republican.administrations.
By the way, someone needs to tell Malcolm Kendrick he’s a very compelling writer.
Rubbish. There’s been no asset stripping that hadn’t already taken place under the last Labour government, unless you can provide concrete proof otherwise.
Entire departments, such as hotel services (catering, protecting, cleaning, laundry, etc) pathology, maintenance, etc, were privatised under the Blair and Brown administrations, partly under PFI, but not always. The excuse was that the private companies could provide more expertise, and additional staff when necessary. In practice, not so much. I suspect that it was as much about getting staff off the NHS pension scheme as anything.
And it’s cost money. The useless bureaucrats who couldn’t manage the directly-employed staff can’t manage the private companies when they charge a fortune and fail to provide services.
And it all happened before 2011, when I retired from the NHS, where I saw it at first hand.
So what proof do you have that the Tories have been “asset stripping” what’s left of the NHS after Labour had finished with it? Unless it’s just the usual far left mantra of “they’re going to sell off the NHS” that they come out with at regular intervals, as if they can’t think of anything else to say.
I can assure Lms2, that the privatisation of “hotel” services began in the mid-1980s under Margaret Thatcher’s government.
When in charge of the ward, I had most to do with the cleaning side. If there was a problem, instead of requesting the ward cleaner to sort it out as in the past, I had to go through the supervisor, who seemed to have the final say as to whether the work was done or not. Cleaning up bodily fluids etc. had always been a nursing job, but not ordinary dust and dirt. But a smaller number of cleaners now worked fewer hours to cover the same area.
It was no wonder that standards of hygiene fell markedly following such “reforms”.
I was no longer working in the NHS when Tony Blair’s government came to power, so I do not know what changes happened then, but they did seem to have other priorities.
The higher levels of NHS bureaucracy were too remote from me, but the lower level people I had dealings with, usually about medical supplies, were normally very helpful and did their best to understand the problems from my angle.
The main source of waste from the viewpoint of a ward nurse, was the lack of a system to return unused, disposable, sterile supplies to a central depot within the hospital, if they were no longer needed on the ward. Many hundreds of pounds worth of equipment was left to moulder in various cupboards all over the hospital until it reached its expiry date when it had to be discarded, leaving space for things we did need. There were such systems for other items, and we had developed an informal intelligence system to tell us which ward was best to borrow from if we ran out of any-thing, but despite many complaints to management, nothing was ever done.
Hi,
I found an article on vitamin D as possibly “causal” …
Evidence Supports a Causal Model for Vitamin D in COVID-19 Outcomes doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.01.20087965
Interesting?
Regards,
J.R.Grit
2020-05-11 10:53 GMT+02:00, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick : > Post : How to make a crisis far, far, worse > URL : > https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/05/11/how-to-make-a-crisis-far-far-worse/ > Posted : May 11, 2020 at 8:51 am > Author : Dr. Malcolm Kendrick > Categories : COVID-19 > > 11th May 2020 > > I was asked by Russia Today to write an op-ed on what had been happening to > me in my work over the last couple of months. It has appeared on their > website https://www.rt.com/op-ed/488075-nhs-made-covid-19-crisis-worse/ This > is wh
Is it just me, or is there still a problem with the way that title is worded?
“Evidence Supports a Causal Model for Vitamin D in COVID-19 Outcomes”.
I actually had to look up the paper and read the abstract to satisfy myself that it shows deficiency of Vitamin D to be a contributing factor in the disease. As worded, it seems to suggest that it is Vitamin D itself that is “causal”.
Ditto
The USA was as bad, most of the deaths in New York have been in nursing homes. There’s even a suggestion that a premium was paid to nursing homes to take patients from hospital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HSiVwlYi0w&t=457s
Then the software models that were used to justify the lockdown were very suspect according to several mathematical modellers, http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/lockdown-and-mathematical-guesswork/ The original estimate for the UK was 500000 deaths.
Describing the models as “suspect” is very polite. Detailed analysis here
https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/
I read it that way as well and, like you had to go and check!
I agree about the title. However, the paper does suggest that vitamin D deficiency may be a contributing factor, then that could explain the reported 99% increase in fatalities in the BAME communities compared with white populations. Vitamin D deficiency is a well known problem in people with darker skin at higher latitudes for most of the year due to the lower power levels of UV from the sun compared to lower latitudes.
and more men than women. I am thinking of self-identifying as a woman.
I am surprised that no 4th wave feminist has demanded an equal share of deaths!
Why attack feminism in a discussion of Covid-19? Perhaps, as a man, you feel unfairly targeted by God, or is Covid-19 something else women are to blame for?
OMG – Chancery Stone. Lighten up a bit – it was a joke.
I showed my wife of more than 50 years, your comment. She laughed heartily.
The female of the species is the best thing on the planet, and far better on average than us men.
I don’t blame God (I’m an atheist) and I certainly don’t blame men or women – it is just the way it is. I’m also thinking of taking up smoking for the first time since 1963. Who would have thought that smokers were better of??!! with C-19
Best Wishes
Self identify all you like. You can’t fool mother nature.
Recently noticed an article (did’nt read it then) that identified Male Hormones as being a causative factor in more COVID – male deaths, and not the Y chromosome as previously thought.
A vaccine is looking more acceptable than the alternative ! 😉
”A vaccine is looking more acceptable than the alternative ! 😉”
Only for those in power and/or the pharmaceutical industry. I will take the vitamin D alternative.
Hi Janet: re testosterone and covid-19 connection, did a quick search
Men with low testosterone at greater risk. Older men have lower testosterone. Diabetic men have lower testosterone and are at high risk. Conclusion: hormone replacement might be beneficial according to some researchers.
Is there no end to this? Don’t do this but do that, this works but that doesn’t, unless… then more. Is there really any point to dissecting people down to every fucking chemical in our bodies? All it does is add more and more fear and uncertainty to our lives. Give it break please, please. Let’s focus on the positive, what REALLY needs to be done to cure what ails us: capitalism!
I think this quote from the essay left a link to here, kinda sums up what has been done to us for at least the last 2 generations:
Hi barovsky: re capitalism as the problem not testosterone
Bernie Sanders:
It’s ridiculous. We’re not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that, other countries tried – it was called communism and just didn’t work.
Animal Farm could be used as a model for overthrowing the system.
Re: testosterone and susceptibility to Covid-19
Testosterone is made from cholesterol.
I think we have heard that there is a link between low cholesterol and Covid-19 so hardly surprising that testosterone will also associate.
“conclude that a high level of confidence in a causal beneficial role for Vitamin D is justified.”
Yes, it’s a poorly worded title for those of us without a Phd in English or Science, and even then… 🙂
I thought the same thing about the title. The paper itself is a little hard to read. I am also not happy with the sloppy way they dismissed the outliers.
“Northern outliers Canada, Germany, Japan and South Korea all correlate with known
low prevalence of hypovitaminosis D relative to countries with severe outbreaks,
presumed to be due to either high-fish containing diets or supplementation (actual
cause is immaterial) ”
I can understand that the Japanese eat plenty of fish. But the Germans more than e.g. the Dutch or the English? No way! Quick googling gives me plenty of studies deploring the low state of vitamin D in Germany. E.g. from the RKI, about half of adults do not reach the optimal level of 50 nm/l (resp. 20 ng/l). The German Society of Internal medicine, hardly vitamin friendly and advising against self-supplementation, quotes this study and says those over 65 are a lot worse off.
https://www.internisten-im-netz.de/aktuelle-meldungen/aktuell/vitamin-d-mangel-ein-hype.html
Ya, I’ve made this point before, you have to understand how very BIG Canada is to put that in context.
I can drive over 2000 kilometers between Ottawa and Winnipeg with only 1 city over 100,000 people in between. I can travel over 5 hours and not see a city over 5000 people.
It’s our great distances, cold weather, and willingness to stay home when it’s -5 C out that has protected us so far. The vast majority of cases are in only 2 cities, Toronto and Montreal, our two biggest.
And each one of those towns has a hospital where I can walk in any time with anything and get treated for free, If it’s a serious accident an air ambulance will come pick me up to bring me to the main hospitals. I’ve seen them land in the middle of a highway hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest city to pick up a traffic emergency and have that person in emergency care within the hour.
Countries like Germany may look like outliers to Vitamin D hypothesis but it’s had a higher death every single country in the Southern Hemisphere, bar none. In fact every single country south of latitude 30 has seen fewer deaths than Germany, including public health paragons such as India and Peru. Nigeria has had fewer than 200!
How about Brazil? They are still on the rising arm, but it’s gonna be bad there!
Why has Greece, with a severely underfunded health system, succeeded in crunching the curve, unlike Spain and Italy which are at about the same latitude?
Because they eat more Sardines? Not likely!
Because the shut down early! So Vitamin D is not the only variable.
Testing, and accurate tracking and reporting would probably explain a lot of the differences between North and South. Do you really think some poor peasant in Nigeria who’s grandmother dies is going to drag her body to the city to get tested for a virus they probably haven’t even heard of yet? That being said I’m a big proponent of D from the sun. I’m just saying you can’t compare Northern (mostly ‘first world’, for lack of a better term) to Southern (Not mostly ‘first world’). There’s no way of knowing the true extent of the transmission in either North of South so you can’t say for sure what’s protective or not.
My point exactly. There are other factors that the autors dismissed lazily.
Not just Brazil but most of South America. Manaus in one of the hottest areas of Brazil, entering fall, people must be full of Vitamin D, is especially hard hit. Somehow that doesn’t make them immune!
When I lived there 50 years ago, the Germans certainly did not eat much fish. Pickled herring yes, also tinned herring in mustard sauce but little else. Trout was eaten in the south and carp was the Xmas dish in catholic areas.
But our local supermarket used to sell huge plaice for about 1 DM apiece, just under half a crown in the old money, £0.125, half the price compared to England. I always thought the German name, Schollen, which also means flat lumps of mud, must have put them off. But they were part of my staple diet at that time.
Thanks. Even before reading, I know I will be grateful for some truth, and intelligent thought on this awful stte we are in.
Always the reliable voice of reason
How do we need to re-organise?
Thankyou. You are very brave in what you are doing, and I wish you well.
Who remembers Graham Pink? Our NHS management continues to let us down.
I had to look up Graham Pink. Now I remember. It makes one frightened to become elderly – oh heck, I already am!
Any idea if the NHS and care homes are giving high doses of Vitamin D to Covid staff and patients to protect them?
I’ve had to send vitamin D3 to my 96 year old mother in a care home because the home is not taking it seriously. I hope the fact that they are 4000 IU won’t make the place concerned. I’m hoping they don’t know the recommended daily figure.
You’re kidding? It won’t be in the NICE guidelines.
No more likely than IV Vitamin C, or for that matter, oral Vitamin C prophylactically, as vitamins are arrogantly described as little more than expensive pee. It is criminal that the pharmaceutical industry holds such sway worldwide.
Thank you for shedding some light on an impossible situation. As with a previous commenter our doctors’ surgery is closed. Even a dog bite, that needed antibiotics and a tetanus injection was deemed non essential!!
I hope we can learn from this ready for the next time!
jeanirvin, conventionally that would be the expected treatment. I would do it slightly differently. Would only apply if stitches weren’t needed), Wash the would with sodium ascorbate solution, and keep would open if possible. Have lots of vitamin C for the next few days (as much as can be tolerated). Look up Suzanne Humphries, and for further info on how vitamin C can help, look up Andrew W Saul. There are others to look up but those will do to start with.
It would be a good idea to understand exactly what is in the tetanus vaccine before any informed consent is given.
Thanks for that, AhN
Never make light of tetanus.
I once nursed a lady in her 70 s who had contracted the disease from a tiny scratch from a rose on her calf while she was gardening. She thought nothing of the injury until she developed severe symptoms of the disease. The treatment was muscle relaxants and mechanical ventilation. After several weeks’ deterioration, she died.
She was probably too old to have been vaccinated against the disease as a child, and once she had become ill, it was too late.
Vaccination will not necessarily protect against tetanus, There are many diseases which are serious if they take hold, the trick is to have a robust immune system. Here is a link to a talk by Suzanne Humphries. https://youtu.be/hIgomZ06FFQ
I once saw a documentary on whistleblowers. Unfortunately, I don’t remember it’s name. If anyone on here knows it, I would appreciate you letting me know, as I would like to rewatch it.
The film says that whistleblowers are psychological outliers. They have an acute sense of injustice and can not keep silent, no matter the personal cost. They are not like “regular” people.
I believe that some of the names discussed on here: Suzanne Humphreys, RFK Jr, Dr Kendrick, and others fit that description.
I have huge respect for them.
My understanding is that immunity to “lockjaw” fades after a while, which is the reason protocol calls for another vaccination each ten years. So, a single childhood jab wouldn’t have done her any good anyway.
Youbetcha I get them myself right on schedule!
(Yeah, I know. Some are going to want to get on the case with vaccine lectures. Please, don’t bother yourselves.)
For normal exposure to tetanus after five inoculations no prophylaxis required for wounds unless it is deemed to be tetanus prone, e.g. horticulture or agriculture. These are the guidelines we use in primary care urgent care centres and also in A&E
I wish such articles could get published other than on RT.
You know the reasons …
Norman
I agree with you there. The Russians should get there own Coronavirus problems sorted before being entertained by our failings.
Trouble is, probably no UK media outlet has the guts to commission and print a critical and truthful article like this.
RT also interviewed Professor Goetzche and RFK Jr. I don’t know of any Western MSM outlet that gave them airtime…
Yet they are prepared to give time to Bill Gates ( could it be true that he gives funds to the BBC)
“Revealed: BBC ‘Charity’ receives MILLIONS in funding from Gates Foundation”
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/revealed-bbc-charity-receives-millions-in-funding-from-gates-foundation/
Oh dear!
Also consider the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s relationship with The Guardian, which is a never-ending spout of propaganda for vaccines, GAVI, Seth Berkley etc… See The Guardian launches global development website with Gates Foundation: https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/guardian-launches-global-development-site
Sasha: Right you are, although Tucker Carlson did do an on-air interview with RFK, Jr.
Gary: I didn’t realize he interviewed him. I just remember RFK, Jr telling the story of how he asked the former chairman of Fox, Roger Ailes to put him on the air to talk about the current vaccination schedule. And Ailes, who is like RFK’s adopted uncle, funny enough, telling him that in non-election years 70% of their ad revenues are from pharma. So if someone from Fox interviews him on the subject, Ailes would have to fire them the next day.
I really like RFK, Jr. And I didn’t like the Indian dude running for Senate in Massachusetts disparaging RFK, Jr. I think the guy is nuts. And maybe controlled opposition.
Sasha: Yes, it’s a sad story about Dr. Shiva. Brilliant man, but to what purpose attacking so many truly good people? Makes no sense.
Gary: unless he’s paid to do so… I don’t know, just making an assumption.
Sasha: He does own a biomedical company, so this may be a factor, but I think it is mainly a defect of character that is driving this.
To be fair, I think RT is pretty balanced. I have been reading it every day for several years, and I have come to conclude that it is one of the best alternative news sites – far better than any of the MSM.
They have their foibles and prejudices. The other day I was surprised and disappointed to see quite negative review of the film “Plandemic”, which criticized DrJudy Mikovits for (among other things) not having mustered a sufficiently articulate, conherent and comprehensive indictment against those who drove her out of science. Of course Dr Mikovits is a career scientist, not a journalist or a lawyer, so that kind of work is not really anything she is used to.
RT is also quite capable of publishing quite strong anti-Russian and anti-Putin stories.
“The Russians should get there own Coronavirus problems sorted before being entertained by our failings.” And what would the point in that be? One of the big problems with Covid-19 is the govt didn’t bother to ask China for information or data. Nor did they pay any attention to the data coming out of China & Italy. Dissemination of information is essential, especially in a pandemic. Everyone is human and everyone is vulnerable to infection. Every nation keeping their information secret not only spreads disease but causes separatism and wars, so quite why are you taking exception to nations sharing narratives form the front line?
Whilst I would take any data out of China with a pinch of salt, it seems madness not to ask for every bit of data coming out of Italy. Until we know whether this virus came from a laboratory in Wuhan or from a wet market in Wuhan from eating an undercooked bat, we can never be sure about anything the Chinese give us.
So, why did we accept the genome they posted of SARS-CoV-2 ?
Watched a news discussion on French TV today where Nobel Professor Montagnier points out that the virus contains sequences from the HIV virus he won his Nobel for identifying. He also notes that an Indian team also found the HIV sequences but had the paper they published removed from the journal by the editor without explanation. He considers that the coronavirus might have been created as a vehicle to create antibodies to the HIV sequence it was engineered to contain, and that release of the virus was likely accidental due to lax biosecurity.
He was adamant that the HIV sequences could not have been inserted ‘naturally’ and that the claim that it happened naturally because both the virus and the HIV sequences exist in nature is simply wrong.
The Swedish Government is a coalition, thus less likely to suffer political point scoring, unlike the UK. Just an observation. Sad but true.
Dr Kendrick,
Thank you for an absolutely fantastic post. You have had the courage to tell us exactly how things were allowed to get as bad as they have. I am neither a medical person or a scientist, but I look forward to comments which will surely be forthcoming from some of the regulars on this blog who understand much more about such things than I do.
I admire you for putting your own neck on the block to protect others, which you continue to do on a regular basis.
Take good care Dr Kendrick, we all need people like you.
I watched Sir David Spiegelhalter on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday and he couldn’t have been clearer that Covid19 has been a disease of the over 75s and I couldn’t help wondering if that must be in part because of the brutal decisions to clear them out of hospitals into care settings not equipped to care for very elderly patients with Covid19, who would then go on to infect the rest of their care home.
Surely, the NHS is there to treat the sick, regardless of what sickness they have. How are Covid19 patients more deserving of treatment than a sepsis patient that you dispatch back to a care home? I just don’t understand the logic.
I sincerely hope lessons are learnt, not just about what we do in a pandemic but also more generally about how we care for the old and vulnerable in the UK.
I’m glad Dr Kendrick reposted his article here. I was wondering what was going on.
As I read RT every day – one of several sites that I use to keep up with the news, as I don’t read or listen to MSM – I saw Dr Kendrick’s piece immediately. Then I wondered what other media had published it, so I began looking. And looking. And looking.
Just think what it means when a distinguished expert like Dr Kendrick can get his considered and very valuable views published only by RT!
We in the UK now have to rely on samizdat media, just as people did in the USSR.
And as far as I can see today, even RT has not allowed comments on Dr Kendrick’s article.
Tom, we gave up touring the UK 5 years ago. Up until the last year of our travels we had enjoyed watching RT streamed for free to the hotels TVs ….then…all of a sudden…it disappeared from view. I wonder why?
They are afraid of Putin coming into their living rooms…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/691cc0e799654c1c8adc04fda3e94c4746f9419af94eb68b4e102c26ecb31f16.jpg?w=600&h=580
As Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time. And you can fool all of the people some of the time”.
And as an American politician is rumoured to have remarked, “And that’s good enough for me!”
Dr Malcolm Kendrick
I’m not sure what to say exactly, but the response so far has been one cock-up after another, and not just the UK.
People who run our Government, our NHS and Public Health England have been shown to be massively incompetent. Worse than that, they are completely lacking in something called integrity.
The underlying agenda seems to be to protect these institutions and the senior decision makers at all costs. So that means talking bollocks for much of the time.
Our education system which is government lead, is so focused on problem solving, that when people leave school, they are unprepared for living in the real world. The real world is made up of interdependencies. And you can’t solve a problem in isolation because solving one problem leads to another somewhere else. In this case people are dying when they may have lived.
As someone who is interested in Systems Thinking, I think our ruling elite badly needs to understand, causal relationships, leverage points, feedback loops etc.
If you have the time, I think this post makes some interesting points, it is USA centric but the message works everywhere.
https://www.thinknpc.org/blog/covid-19-means-systems-thinking-is-no-longer-optional/
You’re right about system failure. However, the government’s psychotic compulsion to keep everything under centralised control is surely a huge spanner in the system.
For psychotic control, read, all governments or almost all. I get the sense that Sweden and possibly other Scandinavian countries are slightly better but I’ve never lived there so it’s just a feeling.
Very depressing. Would the overgrown schoolboys in New Labour be any better. I doubt it. I thought this country would handle this better than most, how wrong.
The ‘idiosyncratic’ actions of the aptly described ‘overgrown school boys’ has little to do with who is in power. Sadly, the same NHS incompetents, in a largely turgid establishment, would have been in charge whether Labour or Conservative were in government. I generally groan when people talk of the need for full public inquiries about this and that . . . but the deadly fiasco that we have endured cries out for one . . . or perhaps we could circumvent having one by a few cauterising resignations from the top of the NHS . . . Wait a minute, was that one of Malcolm’s pigs that just went by my window?
Dear author, do you expose yourself by publishing such texts?
If he’s exposing himself as anything, it’s as a courageous man of convictions and integrity, something that seems to be in short supply everywhere.
In much the same way as Craig Murray, another brave and honest Scot.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/05/a-very-political-prosecution/
I am very proud of them both.
This is NHS England – government response has varied a bit, and now increasingly, across the four nations eg, Wales enacted [brought into law] the once-a day restriction on leaving the home.
NHS Cymru, police and Welsh Govt strongly messaged ‘keep away from your second homes’, and it has been policed.
Wales, like Scotland, is not lifting lockdown, so the four nation divergence in response is sharpening now.
It is true that England has a shambolic government of dangerous complacency and stupidity.
And it’s true that shortage of PPE has hit other UK nations, but let’s not tar Wales and Scotland with the same brush as England.
Mora, I agree England has a shambolic government, and it’s efforts to reduce the impact of an infection in some areas was flawed, the almost total lockdown was stupid, and still is. However, to not lockdown would not come under the category of dangerous. The dangerous bit is having locked down, (put everybody under house arrest, unless they want to go out) they are unable to throw away their socially divisive and damaging policies, because they have been so successful in scaring people, that they have no way of telling people it was not as bad as they said for 99% of the population.
So, is our future in the hands of politicians or handsomely remunerated medical managers? Politicians are in situ due to a populist turn of phrase and white teeth. Medical managers are there, presumably, because they have a handle on matters medical.
It appears that horrific mistakes have been made particularly with regard to the elderly, the ranks of whom I might be fortunate enough to join eventually.
Specialist advisors were consulted and decisions made, or not. If we were heading down the wrong track should not the medical bosses have intervened? After all, if a train is heading towards an unbuilt viaduct should not the driver apply the brakes?
I love your blogs/post/emails. We have the truth and the whole truth from a Doctor who is at the frontline and knows what he’s talking about. The handling of this pandemic in all aspects has been diabolical and I agree that we have politicians who are overgrown schoolboys in charge and out for their own good and not ours. Matt Hancock looks like a rabbit in front of the headlights before it’s squashed. Yes vitamin D3 (with K2) is vital for us to take and make sure you get it from a reliable source without any ‘fillers’. I notice our politicians don’t tell us which Vit D to get cause they don’t know
Thank you
I was working clinically in the field of acute fracture management until the end of march. My senior clinical manager had been redeployed to a ward for COVID-19 cases. She made it clear that PPE was not available to staff on that ward. I asked the director of infection control why PPE was unavailable to staff working with COVID-19 patients. The director asked me who had started the rumour and did nothing else. I then asked the general manager where the PPE was. He said that the NHS was underfunded by way of an answer.
I am 72 with multiple risk factors but could have continued to work for another year or so. Unfortunately my multiple medical risk factors also include an asthmatic wife and a son who works for Mencap supporting folk with learning disabilities. Oddly, the day after I left work, the NHS had all of its debts (£13.4 billion) wiped out by the government so funding for PPE should not have been an issue. Jin Sahota, the NHS Supply Chain Chief Executive, was recently re-appointed to his £235,000 pa post despite never having worked in the health service for more than four years. PPE was his direct responsibility.
Like many others, I still have no idea what to believe… I always used to believe nothing of what I heard and only half of what I saw, in that cynical manner that is given to people who have lived for a their three score and ten. Now, I just don’t find it easy to trust the government’s take on this virus nor do I follow how the matter is being handled. Two days ago I saw a video presentation on Vimeo from a clinician in California. He was talking at a press conference without any particular issue to air. He was trying to understand the data gathered in his part of the world.
He was looking at COVID-19 mortality numbers and managed to determine from his data that 0.03% of COVID-19 patients were dying in his area. In the New York area, the percentage of patients was higher (but not greatly) at 0.1% fatalities. OK, why are so many of his clinical colleagues not seeing this? Alternatively, why is he so far off message? Interestingly, the video presentation was taken down the next day.
It was an extremely rational discussion of the data gathered thus far, in the clinician’s immediate area and in comparison areas, and the explanations given for various phenomena. The clinician also challenged the need to quarantine healthy people. It was based upon his experience working as a virologist for the past 26 years and his understanding of how the immune system works.
In my 72 years experience of living, when discussion is prohibited, it is because the truth is hurting someone else. You, Malcolm, continue to be a beacon of reason and sanity in a world turned upside down and moved away from what I had known as normal. Keep up the work with the blog… reading it prevents me from thinking that everything is hopelessly depressing.
I think it was Sahota who wrote an article in the Guardian (something like 4 weeks ago) about the NHS Supply Chain. He concluded (I paraphrase) – we have to keep the data secret because if we didn’t, people might use it to attack us. Nothing really takes my breath away any more, but that came close!
There are 235,000 reasons that Sahota can cite for being as stupid as he wants to be. It is an obscene salary for a what is, after all is said and done, a job within the public sector. Oh for the days when every NHS hospital in the UK was run by a tripartite managerial board comprising a senior doctor, a senior nurse and a senior administrator. In my living NHS memory (from the early 1970s onwards) that particular management structure was lithe and responsive. Out of hours matters were handled by the RMO (resident medical officer) who had an interest in the welfare of every patient and member of staff.
The wholesale destruction of the NHS (it is currently micromanaged by mental pygmies) along with the handing off of our responsibility to look after ourselves and our loved ones, to an overarching government with multiple ulterior motivations, is shocking to behold.The economy of these islands has been comprehensively damaged by the authorities shouting nonsense from the rooftops. Will I submit to mandatory testing? Probably not. Will I wear a paper mask in the street> Absolutely not! Will I submit to mandatory vaccination? Oh no!
What have we become as a nation and as individuals?
Slightly horrifying is an understatement. Million dollar questions : what can or should, be done now? Is there a way out of the situation as it is now? Regards an apology, I have often thought that an appropriate apology can change our perceptions of a person entirely. An apology from a person who has lost your trust, can cause you to re evaluate them, and give them another chance to re gain it. Sadly, most people, especially politicians, see an apologising as a sign of weakness. Thank you for your honesty Dr K. I hope you don’t get into trouble over it.
Priti Patel has already demonstrated what kind of apology to expect from a Tory front bencher.
As the saying goes, “no one is so hopeless but that he can be used as a bad example”. The UK made mistakes, yes, but it could have been worse. Look at the USA. You might have overgrown schoolboys running your government. We have a senile former reality TV host with a staff of sycophantic cowards whose greatest fear is failing to anticipaate his whims.
Hmm, I see no signs of senility, and I think the US has not mismanaged quite as badly as the UK. But it seems almost all the countries have made some mistakes.
Here’s hoping you won’t be defenestrated
How refreshing to hear someone who works for the NHS saying it like it is. I became a Governor at a major specialist hospital. I was totally amazed at the set up. So many managers all focused on statistics above everything else, Believe me they could talk for hours without taking a breath about numbers. I also had the misfortune to sit on the food committee. The guy from Public Health England only had one topic of conversation- sugar and how every last grain of it should be eradicated from the hospital. Now I know that sugar is bad for you but surely the fact that the hospital food was virtually uneatable was was worthy of some consideration. Why is so much money spent on the allowances of non executive directors (NEDS) who sit on the board of governors? Why can’t it be just hospital managers and volunteers? The only part that I enjoyed was ward walks when I could chat with staff and patients and see if there was anything that they felt needed looking at. Guess what when their views were fed back they were to a great extent ignored. A governors role last for 3 years and then you have to put yourself up for re-election. Once was enough. I am full of admiration for the Doctors and nurses and all of the auxilary medical staff. They are the best of us. But the managers? well words fail me.
Too much sugar is bad for you, but a certain amount is OK and makes life a little sweeter.
The real villains are grains and vegetable oils. Not a trace of either should be allowed into any hospital or school.
Unfortunately such a policy, while greatly improving health and the prospects of patients, would break the miserly food budget – as well as angering the “food-like substance” manufacturers who want a return for their generous political contributions.
The crazyness world dictates that rather than spend 50p on better food today. We’d rather not spend it opting to spend 50 pounds in healthcare caused by the cheap food in 5 years time. It’s all about this year’s budget you see. Welcome to the beurocrats guide to budgeting. Utter bonkers
All quite true, Mike. The medical, pharmaceutical and insurance industries are making out like crazy from the profits, while the “farming” and “food” industries make out like crazy from making everyone sick.
Tom, true enough that the food in hospitals will never be part of the cure, nor will much else done in hospital except in critical emergency situations (for which I’m genuinely grateful). But I once had a nurse ask me how I was doing when I was in for almost 2 weeks. I said I was coming along ok, except that I just couldn’t sleep at all at night. I would have to get out of bed to sit up in a chair, afraid of creating a bad association with going to bed and it was torment after the first few nights. She laughed loudly and derisively and yelled, “you don’t come to the hospital to sleep!”. I was stunned to the point of being speechless and never mentioned it again when asked how I was doing. I clearly remembered Psych classes where sleep deprivation experiments were done and the conclusion was that sleep was absolutely vital for our mental and physical health. Clearly, my nurse never learned that little tidbit..
I firmly believe “all foods in moderation” is the way to go. Also in the hospital environment food is medicine. If you are recovering from surgery or illness no food should be banned. Regaining an appetite is vital to recovery. A case of “a little of what you fancy does you good” I think.
I’m not sure you are in the UK and have experienced NHS hospital food? Or maybe you were lucky! You may have seen Dr Aseem Malhotra’s efforts to try and improve the dietary recommendations generally and the kind of food that his cardiac patients were given following surgery. One, as I recall from his blog, was served a burger and chips for his first meal and complained to Dr Malhotra asking how on earth could he hope to start eating properly to avoid the problem again when this is what he was given in hospital!!
As for ‘everything in moderation’ – now there is so much unhealthy food around, one could have a ‘moderate amount’ of a lot of unhealthy foods if one isn’t very aware of what is healthy and what isn’t and in combination they could prove to be extremely unhealthy. It would seem, at least in the UK, that a large number of people really aren’t aware of what is and isn’t ok to eat.
anglosvizzera I am indeed in the UK and I stated on a previous comment on this page I was a governor at at major hospital and had the misfortune to be on the food committee. I have to say that the food was horrible, nutritious yes, but would I want to eat it absolutely not. As I said food is medicine and if someone has been very sick or has had surgery it is absolutely vital that they can regain their appetite. If that means that they fancy chips and ketchup then so be it. Not something I would advocate on a regular basis but if it rekindles the habit of eating that’s fine and then the healthy eating can be brought back in. It is a sure and certain fact if you giving them food they don’t want and refuse to eat it’s not doing anyone any good. Everything in moderation means just that. Yes a healthy balanced diet should be what everyone strives for but a treat of “what you fancy” occasionally doesn’t do anyone any harm. In fact it probably does you good.
Lynda Cooper – Yes, I agree. I would like to add that the hospital food that I have been unable to force down my throat has provided no nourishment of any sort! I think of the time when I was offered ice cream as a treat. It was at room temperature, and still a solid little block. Heaven only knows what was in it, but certainly no cream, and no ice either!
Excellent Dr Kendrick. A ‘bunch of overgrown schoolboys’ the UK lot certainly are; and I doubt if this bunch of kiddies will have the sensibility to make an apology regarding their totally inept and incorrect handling of the care homes and care home patients, as Sweden has so honestly done. As for the appalling handling of the PPE debacle and total lack of screening…a horror story. A sad indictment – clip board management at its very worst. The stress and sadness you have been under, unimaginable. You’re a good man ‘Gunda Din’. All best wishes to you and to your family – Continue well and in strength. And, please take care those pink things flying around up there…when the SHTF comes to mind, duck !
Thank you for this heart-rending account of reality on the front line – if there ever is an inquiry into what happened in this country, I hope they take on board your evidence (though I have little faith in any inquiry that this government sets up). Thanks also for the advice on the Podcast you took part in recently – taking Vit D daily now, and keeping a store of Vit C available should the worst happen. I no longer take advice from this government, but I will listen to people like yourself. I refuse to be ‘nudged’ to death!
Dr Kendrick, thank you for you latest post it makes very bleak reading indeed. As a retired director of housing and community care services for an authority in Surrey I am grateful not to have witnessed such things. In you view is there any excuse for such panic given the fear of exponential growth in infection rate and potential deaths of tenfold those we have so far seen. Having read you books I know that all cause mortality has the most significance for you and wonder what may be the outcome in excess death after the pandemic? Regards Ian Murray
Shared
>
This is a sobering, ‘battlefront’ explanation of systemic failures and ingrained hubris. We are here becausethe UK has ignored warnings of underfunding and misdirection and failed to practise good sense for many years and on many fronts. The latest set of graphs and statistics need shake us out of our complacent fairytale of ‘it’ll be alright on the night’. It clearly is not the case eg Covid19 recovery tables give UK sufferers a 15.2% chance of dying vs a 4.1 chance in Germany. See below …
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-uk-deaths-cases-latest-figures-stats-recoveries-tests-covid-19-a9497661.html
Malcolm
The reasoning behind all this was underfunding of NHS, and incompetence of makers health ministers, think Hunt think Hancock.
Don’t forget Lansley.
I don’t think “underfunding” is the root problem. If we could get rid of all those administrators who spend their time obstructing the hospital’s real work, things would go more smoothly – and their immense cost would go a long way toward filling any funding gaps.
And cutting down on unnecessary and often harmful drugs would help a great deal too, Tom, especially as a lot of prescribed drugs are not used and are wasted. Any pharmacist will acknowledge this. The NHS via the tax payer is funding the extremely wealthy pharmaceutical companies. Charities, again funded by the public, help to fund these drug companies’ research. The public needs educating to not expect a prescription every time they visit their GPs. Pain killers are dished out too freely on hospital wards and the staff do not at all like people to refuse them. I don’t know how medicine can become more preventative with the drug companies wielding such power.
Very revealing and shocking…although, being a bit of a cynic, I can’t help wondering if it was partly deliberate. I saw a FB post the other day with an excerpt of an article BoJo wrote when he worked for The Telegraph – I found the thing in full in the Telegraph’s archive:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643551/Global-over-population-is-the-real-issue.html
(If you aren’t a subscriber, after a few seconds a window pops up and blocks the text, but I found I could take a quick screen shot before that, refresh the page, quickly scroll down it and take another screen shot – after a few times I got the whole article!)
The other thing that seems almost deliberate is for the public to have been ‘instructed’ only to go outside once a day or for essential shopping, seemingly implying that just being outside is a risk factor. This was despite Professor Jonathan Van-Tam telling us all in early April during the daily briefing that the risk of infection, as with any viral disease, is much, much lower when outside compared to inside (he was asked the question by an astute reporter) – I didn’t see the broadcast myself but there was a video clip going around on Facebook which showed Dominic Raab continually glaring at him as he spoke (probably thinking, “STFU!!!”)!!
Anyway, that little bit of information appeared to pass them all by until now, when we’re being positively encouraged to go out in the sun (now that it’s freezing cold out there)!
Similarly, the hypothesis that a vitamin D deficiency may have been partly contributing to mortality (as started to be put forward with the large numbers of BAME death of otherwise ‘healthy’ people), was completely overlooked by the government, particularly when we had the sunniest month of the year at the time when vitamin D production could start. So only now are we being told we CAN sunbathe, CAN go to the beach and parks and so on.
Is it really down to incompetence of the government that these snippets of useful information, that had been going around on social media and in blogs such as yours for weeks, were somehow overlooked by the so-called government experts?
Maybe the next thing will be that they’ll point out that vitamin C actually is a ‘Good Thing’ for treating these kinds of infections and for immunity in general – but I dare say that’ll be way down the line, once the trials being done in other countries show once and for all how beneficial it is (even though high-dose intravenous vitamin C has been used now for months in China and several weeks in the US…sadly the UK won’t let NHS doctors ‘experiment’ on patients until they have enough RCTs to ‘allow’ such a thing, which is months away).
If they really are full of incompetents, maybe they should have a couple of members on SAGE who are just good at ‘common sense’ to evaluate everything they’re suggesting and enlighten them on diet and nutrition!!
Not sure if this counts as free advertising but it might be useful to someone: the telegraph was recently offering six months free to NHS staff.
There’s no money in vitamin C!
Dr Kendrick. Thanks for this description of your first-hand experience of such tragic incompetence. It must continue to be extremely harrowing and disempowering for you to live through.
My government here in Sweden did not apologise, all they did was to admit it was a failure not to be able to protect the elderly and then claiming ”multiple instances” been responsible. This was hardly a grown-up manner.
Oh well. Nothing is ever what it seems. Sadly.
It is probable that for legal reasons no government will ever apologise about anything – unless perhaps a case has already been lost in court. We have of course seen the obscene manoeuvrings of the DH over many decades in regards to contaminated blood for haemophiliacs and the Camelford water disaster, endlessly drawn out inquiries with officers playing stupid, or just being stupid – these were of course cases where the depth of culpability was never realistically in doubt and the Department was just exhibiting extreme brass neck. They will never of course admit vaccine damage, which is why we can never have reform.
Note the priceless letter of Elizabeth J Sigmund
https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/handling-camelford-incident-department-health
Sounded like an apology to me, considering the source is a government. Acknowledging mistakes might be as close to an apology as some would dare express to their citizens.
WATCH BEFORE IT GETS TAKEN DOWN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVpCWSx8a6I
Restructuring UK society through manipulation. We are being totally betrayed.
On Mon, 11 May 2020 at 09:51, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick wrote:
> Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: “11th May 2020 I was asked by Russia Today to > write an op-ed on what had been happening to me in my work over the last > couple of months. It has appeared on their website > https://www.rt.com/op-ed/488075-nhs-made-covid-19-crisis-worse/ This is > what I wrot” > Respond to this post by replying above this line > New post on *Dr. Malcolm Kendrick* > How to make a > crisis far, far, worse > by > Dr. Malcolm Kendrick > > > 11th May 2020 > > I was asked by Russia Today to write an op-ed on what had been happening > to me in my work over the last couple of months. It has appeared on their > website https://www.rt.com/op-ed/488075-nhs-made-covid-19-crisis-worse/ > This is wh
As a pointer for those who have yet to watch this, watch and look at say 15 mins to 20 mins. That explains what the government is likely trying to do, and getting rid of the elderly is part of it. So watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVpCWSx8a6I
Undine2006: Gosh what a video!
A definite must watch everyone. Opinions needed on this one!
This video is a frightening indictment of the rise of British Fascism!
This is terrifying especially if, like me, you are over 70!
I think I’m going to skip watching it. Causing fear and panic in people is another good way to ruin their immune system and their health in general. I’ve never believed that ‘ignorance is bliss’ but there’s such a thing as too much information, especially when it’s this diabolical. I already have almost zero trust in governments and their lobbyists (big pharma, big food, etc) and I’ve lost almost all trust in so-called ‘health professionals’ and I’m acutely aware that I’m pretty much on my own to figure out what is best for my life and health–just as we all are. That’s enough for me for the time being. I want to spend at least part of everyday smiling and laughing, and watching scary videos isn’t going to help me with that goal. Speaking with loved ones, living a healthy lifestyle and fighting back wherever and whenever I can against rising fascism is the best I can do.
By the way, if you haven’t already, consider signing the Millions Against Medical Mandates pledge; it may help, who knows?
Crikey, just started watching the UKCOLUMN episode… Can you believe this is really happening?!?! Our own governments have declared war on us. In regards to ‘the UK’, Brian Gerrish says “The government is maliciously manipulating public fear and behaviour in order to get through its political agenda.” Discussion on propaganda, invisible government etc. Bloody hell…
Tish – The recommended daily dose is , wait for this, 400IU. Your mother’s 4,000IU will do her good and keep her immune system working well.
Thank you 005lesfrenes.
I have been struggling to understand the logic behind the British mantra “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives”. Protect the NHS? I thought the NHS is there to protect the citizens. So if you protect the NHS by not going to doctors or hospitals, how are you saving lives? Or maybe it means you should provide your own PPE when you ask for help from the NHS? Please, would someone make sense of this for me? Perhaps being a foreigner I am missing something, maybe it is cultural?
005lesfrenes, it does not make sense to many people in England either. It comes from the Joseph Goebbels school of PR. Crude slogans that mean nothing, but will be taken in by the non-intellectuals, and used to enforce control on those that do some thinking.
When, (ever), has it been a cure for any disease TO QUARANTINE THE HEALTHY????? Psychotic thinking.
As someone put it, that is like a dentist who, to prevent caries, extracts all the patient’s healthy teeth.
Tom Welsh – When I first came to England in the early 70’s a dentist wanted to drill all my teeth and fill them with amalgam. Why? Dunno, but I wised up, went for a second opinion only to be told I did not have a single cavity. I guess it had something to do with money.
Well, why shouldn’t dentists extract healthy teeth? Back before the NHS they did a nice line in full extraction and dentures. Thoughtful parents would pay for this as a 21st birthday present, to save the offspring money in later ife.
The theory is they are supposed to look after peoples teeth, there is also an over riding requirement for people to eat food that would cause least damage to teeth (Read “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Weston Price). Dentists could have given advice about this sort of thing, but I suspect the income was better if the teeth decayed to give more work.
AhNotepad – Thanks for your comment. The slogan got people started on the Thursday clapping thing, didn’t it? It’s a sort of WW2 happy sort of togetherness thing, is it not? A feeling of solidarity, a sense of community. It is a travesty that it takes shutting down the world for people to come together, to appreciate each other. I feel for those tribal Amazonians who are up against this thing and may not survive it. Their way of life seems to me to be the only sane one on earth.
I see the Thursday clapping thing as more divisive than bringing together. It is virtue signalling for some, and probably a chance to look down on those who don’t join in. The few NHS workers I have talked to do their work because that is what they do, they don’t expect weekly applause.
AhNotepad I suppose the clapping makes some people feel part of something big and worthy, and some are scared of standing out for not joining in.
Humans are social animals,but with short memories. A year after the virus has disappeared NHS and care workers will be overworked, underpaid, suffocated in red tape and ignored – like the virus had never happened. You don’t need a crystal ball to know this. Minds will be once more concentrated on the exciting private lives of celebrities or some such crap.
At least drunken assaults on weekend A&E staff will have gone down lately!
Ah, how interesting. Thank you for your comment. Perhaps I was being a bit too optimistic about human nature? But where tribal co-operation does work, it is the best sort of human organisation in my humble opinion. When I worked in the NHS all those years ago the public was appreciative and grateful. It was the managers who drove us crazy with their endless bureaucracy, demand for reports, targets and time wasted on “discussions” and “planning”.
I agree tribal cooperation is very effective, and with the right minds the need for traditional hierarchy disappears. The managers have a narrow view of targets is good. It started with measuring something, then it was made a target, so it ceased to be a good measure.
AhNotepad, I find the Thursday clapping very sinister (and yes, I work for the NHS). A couple of weeks ago I was on a bus on Thursday evening. To my horror, the driver stopped and invited his few passengers to join in the clapping. I cravenly pretended to be too absorbed in my book to hear. Someone at the back was braver and protested that they just wanted to get home.
The driver meant well, and I probably shouldn’t be scathing, but it feels like something orchestrated. One minute we’re enthusiastically clapping the “keyworkers” (a subtle redefinition of status?), the next we’re crossing the street to avoid encountering other people. It’s horrible.
Now I’m going to sound really paranoid, but I wonder if it’s also an opportunity to see who joins in and who doesn’t.
Aileen, I don’t think you are paranoid, this is one of the small mind tricks they play to condition people. Mass hysteria is dangerous to the individual, no one is safe, not even the ones that are joining in. They would not know that though.
I am immediately reminded of that chilling scene in the film of “Cabaret” where that clean young lad starts to sing, and then the camera moves around ….
A. “Stay home” So as not to promote transmission
B. “protect the NHS” by doing “A” so as not to overwhelm the NHS
and thus C. save lives
But it doesn’t seem to be working, if, as Dr. Kendrick is saying, the transmission of the virus is happening mainly in hospitals. I think I agree with AhNotepad above, that it is a slogan culled from some Nazi propaganda. Don’t come to us (NHS) if you’re sick, it harms our reputation, because we can’t help you. We might even kill you with those ventilators, so you’re best staying away.
Living is groping. There is no other way.
https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2020/05/10/aztec-king-rules-plague-covid-19-survival/ideas/essay/
W. Jordan
Thank you for this, Dr. Kendrick.
Dear Dr K, Your account is truly harrowing. Sadly, I am drawn to reflect on the rote clearance of wards. Yes there was some pretty mainstream bullying going on, as well as some significant abuse of goodwill. My 90 y.o. mother in law, was drifting in and out of consciousness after, it was suggested, an episode of inter cranial bleeding, when they tried to pack her bags and discharge her without assessment. Luckily my wife was on hand. The hospitals were, however, clearly more successful with many other patients thereby releasing a number of the infected into the petri dish environment of the care homes. That the strategy backfired so tragically has shades of Grenfell Tower, where the Fire Brigade strategy of “remain in your homes” cost homeowners their lives. Another misjudged call, another bloody tragedy. They do say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
________________________________ From: Dr. Malcolm Kendrick Sent: 11 May 2020 09:51 To: malnetvid@msn.com Subject: [New post] How to make a crisis far, far, worse
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: “11th May 2020 I was asked by Russia Today to write an op-ed on what had been happening to me in my work over the last couple of months. It has appeared on their website https://www.rt.com/op-ed/488075-nhs-made-covid-19-crisis-worse/ This is what I wrot” Respond to this post by replying above this line New post on Dr. Malcolm Kendrick [http://s0.wp.com/i/emails/blavatar.png] [http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/8cdd1065f362674895407b00a107d59b?s=50&d=identicon&r=G] How to make a crisis far, far, worse by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick
11th May 2020
I was asked by Russia Today to write an op-ed
(Massachusetts, U S A)
If each comment gave us a location, as above, we could all more easily make sense of what country, state, county, health care system was being discussed. We do come from all over to Dr Malcolm.
I hope that wouldn’t be too intrusive.
A good idea 👍
From Sunny Penzance, Cornwall. UK. 🌞
From sunnt Vauxhall, London
Thanks Malcolm! The UK is not alone in this, worldwide the protection of the vunerable and/or old has been a complete cockup. In Ireland, Uk, germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, the US and even Sweden so many of the elderly in carehomes have lost their lives.
In Dutchland still little to no PPE for careworkers, still not enough tests available eventhough Germany offered to do 5000 per day for us. Dutch government did not take up this kind offer, so we muddle on with 7000 tests per day but only for those who are ill with covid19 or who work in hospital or carehome and suspected of being infected.
Prime minister has said for months that face masks are useless but from 1 june onwards people who use public transport have to wear them. Reminds me very much of Animal Farm and the correct amount of legs thingy.
Social distancing malarky: France 1 meter, Dutchland, 1,5 meters, UK 2 meters. This is of the sense that is non.
Many countries are now slowly opening up but everbody is doing something different, many of the rules utterly ridiculous. Science based? Not so much.
In a recent interview dr Johan Giesecke from Sweden said he now thinks that it is almost impossible to save the vunerable as covid19 is highly contageous. And he is far more worried about the fact that so many governments are becoming totalitarian than he is about the virus itself. I share his concern.
In Denmark, as of March this year , vaccinations are mandatory. In the Netherlands we are told by our health minister that we can’t have big gatherings (concerts, football games etc.) until there is a vaccine. Will it be mandatory or will we be blackmailed into cooperating otherwise no concerts, footie and such?
Also in many countries governments want to track and trace all and sundry via an app on their not so smart phone. It looks like a vast chunk of the world is moving towards the same regime as China has. Very scary.
Both in Germany and the Netherlands more and more people are protesting. Unfortunately the opposition is not doing very much, perhaps still very much afraid of covid19 or, more likely, to lose voters if they speak up about the utter shambles that we are in. Only 25% of Dutch population still afraid of covid, that is progress I suppose, people are waking up.
The real crisis we are in, IMO, is that democracy has gone the way of the dodo and all we are left with is incompetent people at the helm who suffer from delusions of grandeur and who are turning more and more into dictators.
It is a funny old world, innit?
Cheerio, Yolanda
Yolanda, can we stand closer together if we speak French? I don’t, but will make efforts to learn pretty quickly.
Bien sur mon brave, pas de problem. 🤗 Thanks for making me laugh, notepaddy! If you r in UK I could come for a visit and we will just claim I am the cleaner. 😇🙄😷
“Social distancing malarky: France 1 meter, Dutchland, 1,5 meters, UK 2 meters”.
Where’s the problem? Obviously we British are the champion sneezers: we sneeze twice as far as the puny French.
Eng-er-land! Eng-er-land! We are the champions!!!
Well, you have a champion of dorys your PM, the biggest fool on earth and environs. 😂🙄
I sincerely hope that we can all go back to the normal normal soon so we can pick up the pieces. The good news is that there won’t be a second wave. There will be more infected peeps for a bit but that will be all. As professor Dolores Cahill pointed out, an infected person will be an immune person as soon as s/he kicks the virus to the kerb. The more immune people, the merrier!
Cheerio, Yolanda
Very valid opinion piece! But I think that by allowing it to appear on RT, with all that RT has been involved in in general and CV in particular, I think you devalued it unneccessarily. The guardian has been running a lot of critical articles from the front lines lately. Did they refuse to publish you? If so, shame on them!
I initially thought the same but concluded that doctors are apolitical, totally removed from such, above all that largely. A manager or service director would be different and certainly a politician. Hopefully they the mote is also sought in the eye of the Bear !
Just in case people are not aware of what RT is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)
They have been implicated in promoting tall anti-vaccination tales in the West (while vaccinations are very much promoted in Russia!). They were complicit in fabricating a fake story about a 13-year old Russian-German girl in Berlin being raped by a refuge. The English language wikipedia article does not mention them, but the longer German version does:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_case_of_Lisa_F.
In late March, early April, they placed German language “reporting” on Youtube that tried to make it seem like German infection and fatality (!) numbers were vastly inflated.
Currently, they are spreading rumors that Bill Gate invented this pandemic hoax because he is out to vaccinate everybody with strange data particles and make more money. Hmm, strangely, I were him, I would have waited with the hoax until the purported vaccine actually existed!
I would not believe Wikipedia about any alternative news channel. And it’s ridiculous to associate the stories about BillGates with RT – they are everywhere. (I won’t say that’s because they are true).
Moreover, name any mainstream media source that has not been involved in any number of deliberate lies.
They have been pretty bad in Germany and most of continental Europe. I quoted the English Wikipedia article because it offered a concise summary in English. I have way more information from diverse outlets that I actually trust.
Mainstream media source such as Murdoch outlets? Sure, they are nearly as bad.
State broadcasting such as BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle? I am sure they have a mission and that Russia would try to paint them with the same brush as we try to paint RT, but they have not stooped to the same level as RT by a large margin.
Thank you Doc K. for an insight into the madness.
Basically old people can die as they do every year, just as long as they do it quietly and slowly so the NHS isn’t inconvenienced too much. Like the 28,000 would died of Flu 5 years ago. 99% of the population have no memory of it. 217,000 died Europe at almost 900 per million.
Our Prime Minister or his double-act henchmen never treat us like adults – I was talking yesterday (at 2m apart of course) to a 35 year old who was obviously scared to death of C-19. When I asked if she realised that 92% of deaths were people over 60, and that 95% of all deaths had co-morbidities, she had a blank look of non-computing going on. Our leaders never give context – it’s always do this, save lives.
If we were treated like adults and given these facts more people would realise that the risk has been hyped beyond reason. It is nasty and some people die, but they do every year. None us gets out alive.
If I had cancer and a new wonder drug would cost £50k per year, I would be denied it by NICE, but if I contract C-19 we can spend millions we don’t have, to keep me alive no matter what. Dumb in the extreme. I would like another 20 years, but not at the expense of younger folk, including my children and grandchildren.
Say we get out of this later in the year – probably heading into the next Flu season – we can pray that it will be slow Flu year, but eventually another Big Flu season will come – will our government lockdown again then? If they don’t, and they shouldn’t, we will know that it isn’t really lives that they care about.
David R, thank you for a thoughtful comment. I think this might not have been the government’s decisions, but they have been led by the nose and have done what they were told, or scared into doing. That is not to say they are excused. The lockdown decision was appalling, the consequences are appalling, and the responsibility is the government’s. People have been mentally damaged, as was your 35 year old, and it will take many months, if not years of reassurance to repair the damage. (Of course it will all be ok as soon as Bill Gates jabs everyone with a microchip).
“I think this might not have been the government’s decisions, but they have been led by the nose and have done what they were told, or scared into doing”.
It is one of any government’s most important duties NOT to “led by the nose” – by anyone.
Led by the media
And who are the owners of the media? How many in Europe? In the US we have 5 or 6 owners of nearly all media. Europe seems no better.
” I think this might not have been the government’s decisions, but they have been led by the nose and have done what they were told, or scared into doing.” That’s my analysis as well – I live in Alsace, caught the virus and knew 2 people who died of it in March – but still agree with the statement. Same sort of thing as Malcolm was talking about: Where my wife works (“Ehpad” retirement home), those who were ill were politely refused hospitalisation and left to die, averaging about 1 death per day in March at the retirement home. Everyone was contaminated, residents and staff included, in spite of the precautions taken. But pretty much the rest of the population were fine. No staff, nor my wife, nor I, nor the vast majority of the population here, died of the virus even though it was widespread here, indicating that the lockdown was useless and we should have concentrated efforts on more protection of the vulnerable. In the end, it would have been less money spent than the huge economic hit that all lockdown countries are now facing. It’s the huge economic hit especially, that could bring down governments in the future, that leads me to agree with the above statement, since all politicians seem to think about is how to get re-elected.
Malcolm
Thank you for keeping us informed about what is happening on the ground in an out of hours centre and intermediate care unit. It is shocking.
I am a locum doctor and my sessions were cancelled as they no longer needed extra people( no holidays, no routine work, and their online e-consult slots are not even full). I am doing online zoom/whatsapp support for my patients who are changing their lifestyles, and voluntary work for the local carers group, that is all. I am told by my colleagues that general practice is extremely quiet, but nursing homes are very busy. There is apparently enough PPE in our local hospital and plenty in our local hot site, but the criteria for going to the hot site is/are very narrow, and even though it is staffed all day they are seeing very few people in the centre. 3 patients in 3 days was quoted. It looks like mismanagement again.
I have read that the Corona virus ( not COVID 19), is used in the flu jab that many vulnerable people would have had last year.
Therefore anyone who’d had the jab would prove positive for Corona.
Which subsequently would be entered in the death certificates of those tested and add to the government figures.
Do you know if there is any truth in this?
doesn’t pass the smell test
Sorry to post a very long extract, but it is all directly relevant. This is from Dr Judy Mikovits and Dr Kent Heckenlively’s book “A Plague of Corruption”, available from Amazon (Kindle only last I saw, but it’s very readable).
“What you do with a vaccination is you temporarily cripple a part of the immune system, as resources are diverted from protecting against other viruses to target the virus from the vaccine.
“With multiple vaccinations, you cripple several parts of the immune system at the same time and do nothing to restore the balance of the system.
“We don’t know what diseases we are spreading by rendering compromised immune systems susceptible. It makes me angry because some of the best people in the world, like Christian missionaries and medical aid workers, are going to these countries and creating the conditions for terrible outbreaks. They are sending our very best people to unwittingly do the very worst things for the health of humanity…
“I think one of the major problems with vaccines is that they’re grown in animal tissues and we don’t know what viruses and pathogens are coming back in the needle. A recent inquiry in December 2018 by the Italian lab, Corvela, on the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine Priorix Terta highlights troubling problems that our technology can now uncover but that few seem to have the courage to investigate. Translated from the Italian, the report finds:
“’We have continued the investigation, both chemical and biological, on the Priox Tetra, quadrivalent against measles, rubella, mumps, and varicella. We have found . . . proteobacteria and nematoda worms, 10 other viruses through ssRNA, Microviridae (bacterial or phage viruses) and numerous retroviruses including endogenous human and avian retroviruses, avian viruses, human immunodeficiency and immunodeficiency virus of monkeys (fragments that if inserted into the database detect fragments of HIV and SIV), murine virus, horse infectious anemia virus, lymphoproliferative disease virus, Rous sarcoma virus, alphaendornavirus, hepatitis B virus, and yeast virus…’
“If you eliminate the animal tissue, that leaves aborted human fetal tissue, and I think there are significant moral and scientific issues with what happens on a genetic level when you inject human tissue into the bloodstream. Then you get to the issue of chemicals in the vaccines, like mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, and a host of others, and it begins to look like a witch’s brew that would only be given to children in some demented fairy tale”.
You can find much more online, e.g. https://www.corvelva.it/en/speciale-corvelva/vaccinegate-en/what-did-we-find-in-the-mmrv-priorix-tetra-vaccine.html
Dr Mikovits did not make anything up.
Try searching for something like “December 2018 Italian lab Corvela GlaxoSmithKline vaccine Priorix Terta”.
There are thousands of coronaviruses, from the common cold to MERS, SARS, and COVID-19. The antigen tests are specific to COVID-19; many hospitals test for other flu strains first before testing for COVID-19.
There is speculation that the reason the antibody testing is so slow in arriving is that it is proving difficult to achieve specificity between SARS-CoV-2 and the other 4 currently circulating coronaviruses.
The issue with the rtPCR tests is the number of false positives associated with the technique that the Nobel Laureate who got it for devising the method said was the reason it should not be used as a test.
Once more, the PCR test is NOT a device for testing for the virus! It is, according to the Nobel Laureate inventor, a “MANUFACTURING PROCESS”, specifically, to manufacture bits of RNA, enough so that they can be examined.
Ray Professor Delores Cahill has something to say at 30 minutes maybe 31 that might shed some light on what you heard.
Thanks Jerome for putting this vid on the blog. Mindboggling, innit?
MALCOLM if you have the time could you watch the vid above and give us your opinion on the advice given to prevent covid19 for the vunerable by professor Dolores Cahill from Ireland?
In the Netherlands there is now a GP speaking out about treating his patients with hydroxychloroquine , azithromycine and zinc with great results. So great in fact he made a vid about it on youtube to share this with others. Unfortunately he is now forbidden to use this treatment by the powers that be. This GP , Dr Rob Elens, had 24 covid19 patients, 12 went to hospital where they all died. The doc treated 10 patients with HCQ, the antibioticum and zinc and all recovered within a week and needed no hospitalisation. The last 2 patients he put on vit C, D, zink , selenium and quercetine with excellent results.
And of course there is also the treatment with a hefty dose of vit C wot the doc talked about recently in his interview with the chap from primal living. The docs in Wuhan used this treatment for their patients with excellent results.
Long story short:
1) everybody supplement with vit C and D3, selenium and zinc to prevent/combat infection
2) those at risk all of the above plus 1 tablet hydroxychloroquine to prevent/fight infection by covid 19
3) those already infected should be treated with hydroxychloroquine, zinc and azithromycine by first line care givers (GPs) to prevent hospitalisation.
And of course, one week after everybody has done the above, lockdowns can be lifted and we can all get on with our lives again. Well, sort of, because the actions taken by so called worldleaders have done far more damage than covid19 on steroids could ever do.
Cheerio, Yolanda
In my experience, there’s one thing that hospitals have excelled at over the last 12+ years and that’s dumping the elderly back into the community for the “social” sector to deal with.
My mother was unceremoniously dumped back home on a number of occasions (in various states of undress) – it was a case of “coming, ready or not”. It was bloody outrageous.
Why would they have changed their instinctive behaviour because of Covid?
I’m not going to give our current Tory government a bad time because they have an unenviable job on their hands and had only been in place for a short time before hell broke loose. However, I DO despise the last lot with a passion for their continual hard attitude towards the care of our nation. Sickening.
Agree wholeheartedly.
It is probably the same here in the USA.
Not expecting an apology from Trump any time soon…..
I think we (the US) got this wrong, too. And NY, CT too. Everyone overlooked care homes.
I’m guilty of this too. I figured the main vectors would be schools, since they are like germ magnets (both my kids got the flu this year, for instance). I never once though about care homes, since I thought everyone there would be nurses and the like.
And the US is tough because there is no guidance. How do we protect our elderly, including at care homes? I have no idea. I guess each state has to figure that out.
Where is this virus going? What can we do about it?
The thing is, we are it; it is us. It’s a mindless Human/viral biological enterprise depending on human behavior for success or failure.
What behavior?
This title may seem attractive:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/take-shutdown-skeptics-seriously/611419/
Bottom line: We. Just. Don’t. Know. (Yet)
A view from deep inside NYC emergency medicine. Doesn’t seem much different from Dr Kendrick’s perspective.
But – maybe – there’s some learning happening? At the clinical level??
https://emupdates.com/author/reuben/
(That’s it for my allotment of 3 short ones for today.)
I feel sick at heart. As a retired nurse I can picture the scenario in those nursing homes. I worked there for years and weathered many flu epidemics.
Never did I think I would see the entire world brought to its knees by not JUST a virus, but by the completely incompetent bureaucratic decisions that were NOT based on science but were tailored to shift the blame from one “group” to another all while the very people that should have had our protection were treated with abject neglect. This will go down as a very shameful moment in history. And I am doubting it will be the last time this happens either.
Well put Judy.
You should be ashamed of yourself — writing on Russia Today. This does irréparable damage to your credibility and authority.
why i didnt write anything I didnt want to
Welcome aboard Dr Kendrick, you’ve been red-baited by a so-called democrat.
I assumed it was sarcasm…maybe not.
Consider that Dr K undoubtedly improved Russia Today’s reputation. And likely reached a “general audience”.
Gotta write where the readers are if you want to be read!
Dave, you really need to expand on your statements, here. Why exactly should Dr. K be ‘ashamed’ to be interviewed by Russia Today? And how does it do irreparable damage to his credibility and authority in ‘your’ eyes? It’s a reputable source of information, unless you’re the type that expects a country or one of its publications to be 100% perfect at all times before being allowed to do any good. If you’re waiting for any country or medium to be perfect before having credibility, don’t hold your breath. I don’t like Putin, nor the tactics of his sycophants, but that doesn’t mean I don’t follow a couple of sources out of Russia. I used to find out more about Trump’s dealings with Russia through Judy Davis (Russian TV, etc) on Twitter than I ever did from the White House, for example..
Dave Essel, I feel you wrote my reply for you “You should be ashamed of yourself”. Had you left out those words, your reply could have been respected, though I would not agree with it. why should anyone who does what he sincerely thinks is right (and supported by many people on this blog) be ashamed of themselves?
Why doesn’t a campeign to supplement everybody, or at least test and supplement as needed, with Vitamin D figure in any governement’s plan?
Because it would be a lot easier to govern the country (control people) if the population was a lot smaller. Think there’s any chance of coming out of lock down soon? Think again.
Eric, the government might adopt your idea of Vit D supplementation if the lockdowns and vaccines fail to eliminate the covid19 virus. Today the lockdown strategy is being perfected and this occupies their full attention and manpower.
Had a dream last night. After waiting in line for a long time, a gov. agent answered my question. On leaving, another question popped in my mind and had to consider getting back in line again, but the line stretched on forever. Then I realized that my questions will never be answered.
Anyone who takes their cues from the US should look elsewhere. Fauci is totally corrupt and Deborah Birx’s daughter works for Bill Gates.
Dr. Dolores Cahill (imminently qualified) is worth watching here https://youtu.be/Avc6_ftzk3w
It’s our windbag twit-in-chief who is corrupt and unable to figure out how to take even the first step in dealing with this disease.
We have one of those in the UK too.
A reassessment of the herd immunity statistics https://www.nicholaslewis.org/why-herd-immunity-to-covid-19-is-reached-earlier-than-thought_lewis/
I have No wise words on this Malcolm other than to say I am truly humbled by people such as yourself. For all that you have done I sincerely thank you.
But Dr. Kendrick, what about HCQ as a treatment? I’m in the US, so am unfamiliar with UK rules on off-label prescription rules. But my understanding is that HCQ has a half-life of three weeks and is effective as prophylactic use.
I live in the DC suburb of Fairfax county, a supposed “hot spot” and was inpatient overnight last week (I have an acute porphyria) and the nurse assigned to me confirmed what I saw: the hospital was virtually empty. I was told that I couldn’t be admitted WITHOUT A NEG nasal swab for Covid, but they admittted me anyway. Plenty of UNUSED PPE.
I have no doubt anymore that the numbers aren’t accurate and that the aim of this was a dry run for a radical agenda by wiping out as many elderly as possible. There was much scuttlebutt in DC that those who weren’t “top producers” in society wouldn’t receive care. But as the lockdown has dragged on it seems like more of the early stages of a revolution, not a dry run. But my only outing in weeks was that one night in the hospital so what do I know?
Rose, have you looked into any possible long term side effects of hydroxychloroquine? Just curious because there seems to be a lot of opinions/rumours about retinal damage in the eyes, bone pain, liver damage and suppression of the immune system, but I haven’t looked into it seriously enough to know if these reports are unfounded or not. I know one person in real life who has used it for her rheumatoid arthritis, but she’s not very forthcoming about her lab tests or health status, so I’m not sure if she’s suffered any ill effects.
I would have thought that hydroxychloroquine being a standard anti malaria treatment, should be well tested now.
it is used in many, many, people
That’s good, then I can assume it’s been tested just by virtue of many people having used it, and suffering none of the reputed ill effects. All the purported risks were just more fear mongering, then. Thanks for your input, Dr. K.
P.S. Jerome, you can disregard my reply now, which I sent before I saw Malcolm’s comment.
As long as I have breath to speak, I shall refuse hydroxychloroquine. I’ve suffered enough cardiac arrhythmia to understand that I’m at a bit more risk than some for a deadly form of arrhythmia that H has a history of precipitating. If you’re in the throes of this unpredictable COVID-19, whose assurance about the possibility of your own sudden death from torsades de pointes are you going to trust? (We 70-plussers are more prone to arrhythmias in the first place.) Is that risk worth the minimal if-at-all benefit of the stuff for this purpose? Bona fide RCT research just ain’t in. (Yet) It’s a guessing game for now, and guess who’s the pawn.
I’m surprised you didn’t turn this up in your own research.
My thinking is you would be in the best position possible with sufficient vitamin D, and of course all the others. If something gets you after that, I doubt you could have done more.
Of course I turned it up in my research. However, you must remember that Chloroquine is available over the counter in most countries, and hydroxychlorquine has less adverse effects than chloroquine, which makes it very safe (with a few exceptions). However, I have never recommended that anyone take it before they ended up in hospital. Only that, if they did end up in hospital, they would be better off if it was prescribed to them – under medical supervision. As you may have gathered by now, I do not recommend anything that I believe has the potential to cause harm.
Dr Malcolm; teedee,
Doc, thanks for clarifying.
Actually I was addressing teedee without salutation.
teedee, hydroxychloroquine certainly has its uses. I question its universal use for COVID-19. I don’t monger fear. Be very careful of hype bias. Sudden onset arrhythmias can kill.
I don’t know if you have seen this: https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/13/covid19-a-case-for-medical-detectives/
I wouldn’t take up your time and attention, but it looks very important. According to Dr Wodarg, treating patients who have ‘glucose-6-dehydrogenase deficiency, or “G6PD deficiency”’ with hydroxychloroquine can kill them even if they were not really sick in the first place.
Dr Wodarg cites this 2012 paper: “G6PD Deficiency Prevalence and Estimates of Affected Populations in Malaria Endemic Countries: A Geostatistical Model-Based Map” https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001339
Dr Wodarg writes:
“The numerous and disproportionately frequent deaths of Covid19 patients with dark skin colour and from southern countries are apparently also the result of a drug-related mistreatment. Those affected are people with a specific enzyme deficiency, which occurs mainly in men whose families come from regions where malaria was or still is endemic.
“They are currently being treated with hydroxychloroquine, a drug which they do not tolerate, now being used all over the world to fight Covid-19. If this practice does not end soon, there is a great risk of widespread deaths, especially in Africa”.
Dr K. does that include patients with Covid 19-like symptoms presenting at about 500 GP practices in England at the moment?
Malcolm, I’ve found all your posts in the ‘virus’ fascinating & more plausible than most of what I’m seeing, reading in the mainstream narratives. When we’re the other side if this I think you’ve got the makings of a great expository book to follow your previous two which are amongst my favourite books on medical matters. Its of great concern that the elderly & medically vulnerable are being mistreated in the ways you’ve highlighted. Someone has just shared this with me & I thought you may find it of interest:
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR22glpdlzesELFzh4D2Xjh8EOExzr_n4nCfRM07mZZDEtOYSPDeJZ_s7ag
Many thanks for the sanity you bring to my life & the joy & humour I’ve got from reading your books.
Friendly regards,
John
On Mon, 11 May 2020, 09:54 Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, wrote:
> Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: “11th May 2020 I was asked by Russia Today to > write an op-ed on what had been happening to me in my work over the last > couple of months. It has appeared on their website > https://www.rt.com/op-ed/488075-nhs-made-covid-19-crisis-worse/ This is > what I wrot” > Respond to this post by replying above this line > New post on *Dr. Malcolm Kendrick* > How to make a > crisis far, far, worse > by > Dr. Malcolm Kendrick > > > 11th May 2020 > > I was asked by Russia Today to write an op-ed on what had been happening > to me in my work over the last couple of months. It has appeared on their > website https://www.rt.com/op-ed/488075-nhs-made-covid-19-crisis-worse/ > This is wh
Thank you Malcolm for sharing this with us and a wider audience, although sadly limited via RT.
A lesser man would have simply kept quiet but not you and all credit to you for this.
I still don’t understand why we’ve had so many deaths (per capita) unless the vast majority occurred in care homes but we can’t even trust the avalanche of numbers, perhaps that’s the intention?
The more I look at the lockdown, the less sense it makes. Millions are still working, what kind of lockdown is that? Just how dangerous is this virus to healthy people? Surely, we knew very early on that it was dangerous only to a very specific section of our communities, so we should have taken steps to protect them. Not difficult — if you have functioning national health service.
But now we’ve thrown millions of working/poor people into penury, under the pretext of protecting them! I don’t get it, until you consider that the government, the 1% don’t have a problem with the lockdown. It doesn’t affect them!
So the end product is that the lockdown is doing more harm than good. Whose stupid idea was this in the first place?
The whole disaster was further compounded by the indifference and incompetence of our elite, who have proved that they incapable of being a ruling class. They need to go and pronto!
Thanks for your report- it seems to parallel reports I have read and been told about from those in the medical field who have first hand experiences here in the US- I live in NY.
I have a few questions concerning the tests and deaths attributed to Covid.
There was report that came out today in the US. It was a very large sample size, though not a representative one, of subjects in MLB baseball and employees. Largely a healthier population than the overall US population. The study resulted in a mere 0.7% of “Covid positive” cases. In this study both the PCR and a serology tests wee used- for the first time. Is it possible that in other tests where ONLY PCR tests are used there will be a distortion towards an excess of “positive” results?
Is it true that both PCR and antibody tests are meaningless? Can they actually prove ” a new deadly disease” called COvID from a sars corona2 virus? Seems the PCR test doesn’t and can’t differentiate from either (corona) viruses( sars corona 1 and other coronas).
Here in the US there is most definitely, and confirmed by officials, a predisposition towards listing deaths as “Covid deaths” even without tests or diagnosis in some cases. The CDC changed it’s mandated protocols for how to file death certificates for the first time in 50 years giving a liberal interpretation to “Covid 19 deaths.” That they would even specify any disease as one to be given special attention seems dubious at best.
Are you seeing any of this in the UK?
I have read that the immune response, antibody production, is weak and it is speculated that this means that, with the high infectivity and most people not even knowing they have been infected, the innate immune system is defeating the virus in most cases. So if not actually still having the virus means the rtPCR test is negative and if having had asymptomatic Covid doesn’t create any antibodies then most people will record as not having had the virus at all.
Since we are starting the blame game, let’s focus for a little on journalists of all stripes. Politicians may very well be overgrown schoolboys, but journalists are nihilistic adolescents who need a bath and a real job.
A total disaster. They are obsessed with the vaccine. They never explained, never asked anyone, how much time and money does it take to grow the antibodies on hundreds of thousands of chicken embrios or dog kidneys to make all the doses of vaccines necessary, all of which could also need refrigeration. Also, no “serious” journalist warned the public of the fact that the last time they tried to make a vaccine for a coronavirus many people were badly harmed as a result. For some reason, some viruses don’t go well with vaccines. Which is a bummer, of course. But this difficulty is not to be ignored.
Also, they are obsessed against unexpected “cures” like OHClquine and zinc. The cannot even begin to think that unsophisticated old things that cannot be patented can be useful in saving lives. Journalists are complete slaves to pharmaceutical companies. This is a big part of the problem.
Still, we don’t have a 7% fatality rate over the general population, nor a 7% case fatality rate, because every expert (the actual experts, not the fake ones) says that by now there must be tens of millions of people who were infected and never realised. All that people in spite of the damend fascistic lockdown. So it is more like 0.1%. This is something to be happy about, correct? Well, let’s leave it at shadenfreude.
Let’s take this as a learning experience: Fascism is very bad, even if it is for your own good (no such thing). Also, healthcare is too important to be left in the disgusting hands of politicians and journalists. We need freedom of information and freedom for Doctors and Nurses to manage correctly what no one else knows how to manage.
And journalists must learn to be quiet and to side with the doctors and nurses always, never with their bosses. Always strive to be a part of the solution.
Localism should be given its well deserved opportunity.
Smh…you talk about fascism, but fascists/dictators always despise and denigrate journalists and the media because they tell the truth about what they’re up to behind the scenes. True, there are some total scumbags in journalism and their conflicts of interest are just as legendary as those of dirty politicians, but without the many honest and dedicated investigative journalists out there, we would have been living in a Dictatorship in every country on the planet a long time ago. Don’t be lumping the bad eggs in with the good because that’s a clear red flag that someone isn’t being objective.
I think I disagree with you teedee. Our journalists are mostly completely under the thumb of the rulers. Not every situation is a total replica of previous ones. Perhaps other dictators despised journalists because they had not been cooperative or complimentary to them, but how long could that last?
Anna, perhaps it would have helped if I had described what I define as an “Investigative Journalist”: Gary Taubes is an Investigative Science Journalist, as I believe Dr. Kendrick, Nina Teicholz, Tom Naughton, Zoe Harcombe, Prof Noakes, et al. are, as well. They investigate and analyze the studies and research done in the field of human health, nutrition, virology, etc. etc. and then pass on that information through blogs, videos, books, conferences, etc. to whomever will receive it (like those of us on this site). That’s a crucial branch of what I consider Investigative Journalism, and I should have been more clear on that point, now that I see how poorly my comment was received compared to the comment that started the conversation. It definitely gives the impression that more people on this site believe that ALL journalists are trained monkeys writing only what they are ‘allowed’ to, and as I said, yes, some are absolutely that way.
Don’t misunderstand, I have no interest in changing your mind or opinions about “journalists”, you need to decide that for yourself, I simply realized that I hadn’t laid out my own definition very clearly and wanted to correct it. Take care..
I was talking to the window cleaner today. After congratulating him for being able to resume his business, it became clear that he knew a lot of the facts – I don’t know how, because the BBC makes no effort to inform people. Thus, he knew that many people who died with flu were being recorded as CV-19 deaths. He knew about the value of Vitamin D, he knew someone who nursed in a CV-19 ward, and she said that those without other co-morbidities were 20 stone plus!
He felt that if it had not been singled out in the way it has, this nobody would have even noticed anything special was going on.
David
David, Some of us tradesmen spend a fair bit of time on blogs like this. I’m forever giving info to my customers to try and wake them up from their “well it’s best to follow the guidelines” attitude. It’s not really any of my business, but they ought to be thinking instead of just believing the narrative. It will be a dangerous place if Gates gets his way.
That window cleaner ! What a character He’ll be commenting on this blog next thing you know and eating his guacamole without a packet of crisps !!
Thank you Dr Kendrick. Please take care. Be save.
You are saying, from the GP perspective, almost exactly what this young Doctor in this interview is saying from the hospital perspective.
Congratulations Malcolm for being brave enough to give this article to RT. I like RT because it gives us uncensored news – rather like the way the BBC used to supply uncensored news to Eastern Europe – but the other way around!
I am very glad you survived that ordeal – hopefully your Vitamin D levels helped.
To me another aspect of this scandal is that people have not been instructed by government to take Vitamin D – even though some of them never set foot outside their homes to obtain some naturally. Were even the nurses and care staff advised to take Vitamin D?
The website link is very good re covo throughout Europe, but it IS Russian-run, I guess.
>
Yes it is, and the Russians are now a democratic country entitled to their own point of view. My impression is that they want to spend a hell of a lot less on defence if the US would do likewise – i.e. to de-escalate East-West tensions. Based on Trump’s statements while being elected, I think he would like the same, and that that is a major reason for the continuous campaign against him. I hope he gets a chance to put his ideas into practice in a second term.
I lived through the tension during the Cuban Missile Crisis – going to school wondering if the bomb would drop before I got back home – I don’t want to live through another such crisis just because the arms manufacturers are hooked on selling more and more weapons.
David – I agree largely re US military spending which is colossal but I dont see Russia as democratic, political rivals do get a hard time and critical journalists get a much much harder time. At the risk of this turning political and Dr Kendrick issuing a caution, i will say no more. Apologies Dr. K for going over 3 inputs but David’s comment shouted out for a counter argument.
Jerome,
The problem is that hardly any democracy is ideal. Can the US be an ideal democracy when most of the media are implacably opposed to Trump for unstated reasons. Can Britain be considered a true democracy when we were given the chance to leave the EU, voted for that option, and were then very nearly thwarted by MP’s and others who thought they knew better?
Can the EU be considered democratic, when its latest leader was picked by their politburo (sorry European Commission). and MEP’s only had the option to accept or reject her?
Democracy should be thought of more as an aspiration that is hard to achieve completely, but very desirable even in less complete form. I would guess that President Putin is genuinely greatly admired in the country for stabilising the mess left there after communism collapsed.
How likely is it that the very people who are filling up the space left by those actually following Dr. Kendrick’s recent request are the ones he was addressing in the first place?
” . . . as I read them all, this is becoming an almost impossible task for me. I am going to ask others the same thing. Therefore, I am going to ask for a maxiumum of one long post or day. Or three shorter posts. Thank you in anticipation.”
(Apologies, Doc. This puts ME over my limit.)
The RT-PCR test being used to diagnose infectious disease by a viral pathogen is completely flawed. https://theinfectiousmyth.com/coronavirus/RT-PCR_Test_Issues.php
Stunning. And thank you for having the courage to post this, which is true for all over the world because C-19 was run by personal political agenda. Tragic…and, the collateral damage is just beginning. I pray because only God can make a difference and save us now…again. c
It IS all about Love. Carol ATMortillaro Parker 307.690.3888
>
This is so fine (Zach Bush interview):
Just watching this excellent interview. At about an hour in, he talks about the dangers of statins and ACE inhibitors with regard to Covid-19. He suggests that doctors take their elderly patients off statins and ACE inhibitors even if it’s only for a few months, which should help them avoid serious illness from the virus.
anglosvizzera: Yes, I find that good advice. The more I’ve read and thought about this affliction, it seems to me the pathology is primarily vascular, in addition to the effect on the oxygen-carrying capacity of hemoglobin. Also read recently about the MATH+ protocol developed and successfully used by a group of Minnesota doctors. Doctors will figure out the best treatment options, even if governments never acknowledge or embrace them. But with the internet, good ideas can be widely disseminated.
In a recent Dr Mercola article which interviewed RFK Jr re vaccines, mention was made of the fact that those who receive the flu vaccine are in general made much more susceptible to the coronavirus ..
Is it possible that by and large the elderly are more ‘flu vaccinated’ than the population at large, and that this has led / may lead to higher mortality rates ??
Article Title: Possible Challenges in Coronavirus Vaccine Development: A Special Interview With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. By Dr. Joseph Mercola
Mercola Article URL:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/05/10/is-there-a-vaccine-for-coronavirus.aspx?cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20200510Z1&et_cid=DM534044&et_rid=86899328
Interview Transcript URL:
Click to access Interview-RobertFKennedyJr-PossibleChallengesinCoronavirusVaccineDevelopment.pdf
Transcript excerpt:
Bobby Kennedy Jr.:
But it does bring up this other subject that you spoke of before, which is that there’s this Pentagon study from January 2020, so this year, and the Pentagon study is actually two years old. The Pentagon was looking at, because for the interest of military readiness, the Pentagon does a lot of work with infectious diseases. And it was trying to do experiments to see whether getting the flu shot would help against coronavirus, and then what it found surprised them, which was actually when you get the flu shot, it makes you more susceptible to the coronavirus. So it raised the risk of the coronavirus 36% if you had a previous flu shot. And that study was not about coronavirus 19 but it was coronavirus. It’s a red flag.
That study is not alone. We’ve found, and I’ve posted these on my Instagram about, at least 10 other studies that say, “Yeah, if you get the flu vaccine, you’re much more likely to get a non-flu respiratory viral infection.” The risk goes up, on some of those studies, about 600%, and on other of those studies, less than that, 200%, 300%, 400%. But virtually all of these studies that we found show that the flu vaccine actually makes you more susceptible to coronavirus, and there maybe reasons for that. It’s been speculated that there maybe coronavirus contamination in the flu vaccines.
In the US, the elderly in nursing homes are routinely given the flu shot. I assume that is true over most of the world. As to the other elderly, I can only give my impression, which is that they get the flu and pneumonia shots at a pretty high level.
Re flu shots: my GP surgery routinely, every autumn asks me to get a flu shot which politely decline.
barovsky – I shall NEVER have another flu vaccination, EVER. Just all the wasted syringes distresses me, in addition to the wasted resources, human and material, for something so …what? Dodgy. So no, never again.
While the CDC admits flu shots for over 65s are ineffective at preventing the disease. https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2013/02/21/flu-vaccine-ineffective-over-65. There is a link on the page to the CDC report, but I can’t understand all te figures and what they mean.
For anyone who is interested, here are the registered SARS-CoV-2 vaccine trials in the U.S.:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=SARS-CoV-2&term=vaccine&cntry=US&state=&city=&dist=
Many thanks for this article Dr Kendrick. Thought-provoking as always. Though troubling.
Contrary to a few opinions aired above, Covid-19 does not target the elderly disproportionately. Deaths registered in England and Wales as published in the weekly updates from ONS (up to week ending 24 April) show a normal age distribution similar to the average over the past 5 years. That is to say: about 86% of all deaths are among those over 65 years of age. While it is certainly true that the overall number of deaths each week is about twice the average of the past 5 years the ‘extra’ deaths are not all being registered as Covid-19 – which Dr Kendrick has explained by his experience of dealing with death registrations in the absence of any testing.
Although it would be useful additional information, we don’t really need to test the sick. We need to test a broad sample of the population to see how widespread this virus really is.
Dr K unleashed us on the trail of Dr Hope-Simpson and his fascinating exploration of flu epidemics; and how quickly they could seemingly appear. A long quote from H-S’s book
“The epidemical catarrh of 1775 seized, in general, the inhabitants of Chester about the middle
of November. From the 15th till the 25th of that month the distemper spread most universally;
yet very few were attacked so late as December. This epidemic pervaded all North Wales within
three or five days after its general seizure of the inhabitants in Chester; that is, on the 18th or
20th of November, as I have authentic information from every town and every considerable
village, and their neighborhood.
I was curious to know how those were affected who were most secluded from the intercourse of society;
an intelligent practitioner informs me that in Llyn, the most western and remote corner of Camarvonshire, this epidemic began about the 20th November, was general through every part of this peninsula, and affected all classes of people; that one in a family now and then escaped it, but that he knew no family, however small, among whom it did not make its appearance.”
My point: we get angry about “protecting the elderly”: we think flu spreads from sick to well; and on and on; maybe, just maybe; as a respiratory virus, corona could be like flu: its spread is more complex than we think; (after all, we used to know that cholesterol was the problem ..)
The point also above is: the epidemic started in the very remote Llyn peninsula, (in 1775) at the same time it arose all around. Maybe it was already embedded; maybe we don’t know everything, as we like to kid ourselves.
Terry, that is a fascinating account. I can’t test my hypothesis, but was the virus (maybe more than one) distributed during the better weather when people had the resilience to overcome it, then when vit D levels drop, so does the ability to deal with the infection. I imagine that in 1775, travel between settlements was very limited, it would take a long time, so the infection could not spread person to person in that time.
“was the virus (maybe more than one) distributed during the better weather when people had the resilience to overcome it,”
spot on AhNotead: that is exactly what H-S felt was a hypothesis to explain the facts; (as you know in modern science, you have a bright idea whilst on the toilet, and the facts then must be henceforth warped to fit your idea!!) His whole book produced more and more facts: to support his hypothesis.
One of the points Dr K highlighted in the Cannell paper said “Why did epidemics in previous ages spread so rapidly, despite the lack of modern transport?”
Here from 1658 “about the end of April, suddenly a Distemper arose, as if sent by some blast from the stars, which laid hold on very many together: that is some towns, in the space of a week, above a thousand people fell sick together.”
They too failed to protect their elderly; (well, it was Oliver Cromwell’s fault).
another short quote from Hope-Simpson, working as a GP in 1932 in remote, rural Dorset.
“Some of the earliest cases occurred in remote farms and cottages with little communication. The explosive onset over a wide country area was difficult to reconcile with the accepted picture of a disease agent being directly transmitted by the sick patient.”
……. see: back then they also failed “to protect the elderly”.
Sent to me today, https://youtu.be/pwe8sh8I3Po, a simple explanation of vitamin D and it’s benefits. Just in case it is misinformation, I would recommend those in power, and Fauci and Gates, do not risk it, but take their safe and effective vaccines, to be safe.
Why would RT invite a relatively unknown regional doctor to write an article on Covid 19? If you asked Yale historian, Timothy Snyder, or Russian journalist based in USA, Masha Gessen, they would both say this is Putin’s MO. Spread disinformation about anything Russia may have done, but ensure there is as much negative news about ‘democratic’ countries like the UK. Putin offers the population no improvements, but tells them he is THEIR oligarch. (Better the devil you know…?)
Oh and we know some healthcare workers in the UK might lose their job for going public on PPE shortages. In Russia such doctors have mysteriously fallen out of upper storey windows. Anyway, Dr Malcolm Kendrick is in good company as right wing xenophobe, Tommy Robinson, is now paid by RT:
https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/04/third-doctor-falls-hospital-window-raising-alarm-about-coronavirus-12650832/
Ay yes, I can see you are a student of Schopenhaeur, and his 38 stratagems for winning an argument.
SCHOPENHAUER’S 38 STRATAGEMS, OR 38 WAYS TO WIN AN ARGUMENT (Stratagem 38)
A last trick is to become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand. In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular trick, because everyone is able to carry it into effect.
How depressing. Decades of knee-jerk anti-Russian/anti-Soviet propaganda, propaganda that is fundamentally racist in nature. Facts fly out the window. So now Putin hurls opposition of out of a window somewhere (no names, no evidence of course, Kendricks writing now joins the ‘enemy’, so what was inspiring awhile ago, is now not to be trusted. Kendricks joins the ranks of ‘useful idiot’. No wonder I feel so depressed.
Same goes for China, Red Menace meets Yellow Perril
Well, we readers of Dr Kendrick’s know better.
In a world filled with confusion and deliberate deception, any source of benevolent honesty is worth more than gold or diamonds.
There aren’t many of them, and we must seek them out and cling to them devotedly.
The media in the US are now unbelievable. For example, last Tuesday there was a special election in California for two seats in the house (I think). The outcome was that both seats flipped to the Republicans (and remember that California is a Democrat stronghold), but according to Fox News, the other media either ignored the story completely or barely mentioned it. That to me is censorship pure and simple. I think we should all be terrified of the media – both here and in the US.
This comment is not totally off-topic, because it is clear that the media could have wrecked the market for statins just by creating one or two documentaries that covered the facts. Indeed, an Australian broadcaster tried to do just that, but the guys at the top pulled the program at some point. Right now the media could tell everyone to take a Vitamin D tablet to stop, or greatly reduce this pandemic, but they don’t, even though excess D is harmless (presumably within reason!) – probably because Big Pharma don’t like vitamins, and because the media don’t really want the COVID crisis to and any time soon.
Hi, David,
Just a little correction to your post. There were two US House seats up for grabs. One was in Wisconsin and the other in California. The Wisconsin seat is settled, I believe. Officials had not finished counting the votes for the California seat, but it appeared the Republican was firmly set to win.
The US media is highly partisan. I think it did not so much become highly partisan as it simply reverted to the mean of the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was extremely partisan. I think the main trigger for this change was the end of Cold War. Without a great geopolitical foe to provide some unity and force the US to look outward, we returned to our traditional inward bickering. I’m sure this is not the only reason.
Fortunately, we have a lot of news outlets which compete for attention from the various constituencies. We also have the internet and the democratization of event reporting. Which is a really great development, because then we get to read the thoughts of Malcolm Kendrick (as well as exchange thoughts on his forum). Dr Kendrick would be too much of a “kook” or a “charlatan” to make it in the sober and serious world of the Mainstream Media.
The internet way is the word-of-mouth way with all its beauty and blemishes. For those of us who use it, the internet trumps the partisan press.
That is a great insight, Malcolm – I’d never heard of this. Perhaps you could weave thr 38 stratagems into future (more conventional) discussions about CVD, diabetes etc.
I find Schopenhauer’s stratagems useful in understanding how debate works, and does not. As you know, I always try to support debate, even if I completely disagree with the points being made, and discourage things that stop debate in its tracks. Attacking the person is the most common form of assault and is most disruptive. The attack can take many forms: Attack on expertise (or lack of), attack on understanding, attacking motives or just a simple. ‘You are a stupid and horrible person’, sort of attack. Then there is what I call the ‘fascist’ defence, which is being used a lot at present. ‘Your selfish and stupid actions will harm other people.’ Here is the underpinning of fascism. The good of the many/society overwhelms the freedom of the individual. Therefore, those in power should be able to decree what everyone can, and cannot do. The basic motivations for this may start as a wish to protect the majority – which is good. However, the unfortunate consequences of fascism taken too far (where it always ends up) have been seen rather too often for me to support ‘the greater-good’ argument. I’ve seen where it ends. So has everyone else.
Or, to quote Benjamin Franklin on the matter:: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Unfortunately, once people can be made frightened, most of them gladly run to safety. Liberty is far too abstract for most people to fight for, or die for. Most of the time.
The most favoured strategy among our commentariat is No 35: “This trick makes all unnecessary if it works. Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect, work on his or her motive. If you succeed in making your opponent’s opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly to his or her own interest, the opponenent will drop it like a hot potato.”
It’s all a plot to control us/vaccinate us/reduce the population/cut NHS costs/etc etc…
Martin Back: It doesn’t require any sort of plot for governments to do stupid things. Happens all the time. As for Bill Gates, he is clearly and publicly in favor of population reduction. It is him and his vast sums of money who are behind the worldwide push to vaccinate everybody. He is persona non grata in India now, because of the deadly results of Gates-funded HPV trials. Peter Aaby is a Danish researcher working in west Africa for thirty years. Read what he has to say about the results of DTP vaccination there. 500% higher overall mortality among the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated. I will post a clickable link if you wish. I does not require a plot for people to do stupid things. We all do it, less so as we age. But money and political power magnify the damage those mistakes cause.
Gary, simply saying a course of action is stupid is Schopenhauer’s No 38: “A last trick is to become personal, insulting and rude…”. For a proper argument you need to justify your allegation of stupidity by supplying refutable supporting statements which lead logically to a judgement of stupidity. (Please don’t. I’m not going to argue with you.)
Martin Back: Dr. Kendrick’s entire blog post above is a powerful argument that the UK government has acted with stupidity. Is that not apparent to you? It is to me.
Not quite sure what to make of your comments as you correctly placed the word democracy in inverted commas when referring to the systems of manipulating the popular vote used by the commissars who lord it over the lumpen proletariat in the UK and US.
But you shouldn’t be bringing Mr Yaxley-Lennon into a dignified debate about matters of some importance.
Every now and again this blog attracts a rude nutter. I suppose you are seeing if you can break the record for “thumbs down”. You add nothing to life except venom. I am sorry that I have been tempted to respond to you. You are disgusting.
Jennifer,
I strongly suspect your comment was not meant to be attached to Dr Kendrick’s comment!
Somehow on here I find my comments often appear in the wrong place, so when I want to reply to someone, I always place their name first – as I have done in this reply to you.
You are, of course totally correct about this forum attracting the odd rude nutter!
I wonder who you really were replying to?
You are, of course totally correct about this forum attracting the odd rude nutter!
David, but if not here, where would I go? 😢
AhNotepad. Well, I would say you are never rude. Now, let’s all have a laugh,eh?
Hubby got his 4 page reign-in instructions from NHS yesterday…..2 months after the kids had already grounded us anyway. We had a chuckle at some of the suggestions.
Sleep apart….well after 53 years I think we will be naughty and disobey that one.
Use separate bathrooms…what? In a 2-up, 2 down street house?
Don’t share the kitchen….now come on…the dishwasher broke years ago…I can’t be expected to do everything!
Take your meals back to your room….we put a stop to that years ago when training the teenage kids to maintain decent table manners.
And then….the best. A sweet woman phoned up today to request a 10-15 questionaire about the contents of the letter. His answer to her? “Certainly, I’ll just put you on speaker phone so the other half can listen in!”. ” have you any problems,sir?”. ” are you home alone? and if not, are you keeping 2 meters apart from your partner?” ” do you have any mental problem’s.?”…and him glancing periodically for me to mouth the answers.
But it was nice of her to enquire and tick the boxes appropriately. Now the NHS gets a gold star for ticky-box techniques, as we have discussed here over the years.
David Bailey. You will never know how delighted I am to get your response. My May 12 entry at 10:19pm was directed to Suzanne Looms’ entry on May 12 at 1:18pm. I generally always put the person’s name first, but I reckon I was so annoyed, I just dashed off my response. As the days have gone on, I noticed my entry got further and further distanced from where it was meant to be…..and I have tried all ways to correct it, but failed. I do hope this clarifies things, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to do so. Jennifer.
What It’s Like to Believe Everything the Media Tells You (8 min.). Very Funny!
thanks: marvellous
Nobody will admit it, but I think the government have put their herd immunity hats back on.
Not just this one, but the likes of Germany too. They’re up to 1.13 on the Boris scale yet continue to relax measures.
Either that or the powers that be have had their brains turned to mush.
Something’s afoot, that’s for sure.
In the absence of a safe, effective vaccine, only the acquisition of wide-spread immunity in the population will halt the Covid 19 epidemic. ( I dislike the term herd immunity; we are not cattle.) Lockdowns are counter-productive as they are delaying this from happening.
The vast majority of the population must be entitled to live their normal lives from now on. Those at higher risk should be fully informed of their personal risk, as far as this can be assessed, but they must then make their own choices as to whether they are prepared to put up with any extra restrictions. If those at higher risk decide to stay off work they should get adequate financial support.
The only groups who might be protected against their express wishes are those who are clearly too demented to make such choices. But it must be understood that adequate protection for these people is probably only possible if their carers are quarantined as well, like isolation hospital staff sometimes used to be during epidemics.
The epidemic must be allowed to burn itself out among 99% of people over a relatively short space of time. The population are to be be encouraged to live a healthily with plenty of fresh air, sunshine and exercise, a nourishing diet, with vitamin and mineral supplements supplied free by the NHS. Once the epidemic has passed, the vulnerable can come out of quarantine and mix with their families and friends.
If a safe and effective vaccine becomes available, it should only be given to people with their full, informed consent. It should not be administered to demented patients or to vulnerable children until its safety and effectiveness has been established by widespread use, with the benefits to the individual clearly outweighing the drawbacks.
Some commentators believe this epidemic is being deliberately prolonged to provide a tied market for a new vaccine. Sometimes I believe them, sometimes I don’t. But I think any recent measures to control and coerce the population of the UK or any other country must be halted at once.
Myself, and several members of my family may have had this disease very mildly. I don’t yet know anyone who has been seriously ill or died. But it is taking an emotional toll, especially among teenagers, for whom being stuck in with their parents goes against their every instinct.
My hope is that people will gradually start ignoring the regulations in large numbers so that the authorities, if they are ever around, finally give up stopping them. There are signs that people in our small Yorkshire town are doing just this. Fewer masks are being worn; people are stopping to chat in the street at a normal distance; there is more traffic. People are visiting and having visitors. But until the shops, cafes and pubs reopen, in a town largely dependent on tourism, things are anything but normal yet.
And I do need a hair cut!
I agree entirely! On my local FB page, there are people criticising the new found ‘freedoms’ that we’ve been permitted to enjoy. There is one lady who is immunocompromised complaining that she isn’t allowed to see her family and is very worried about any easing of the lockdown. I tried to explain that actually the best thing for her would be for her family to get the disease as soon as possible and recover, so that they wouldn’t endanger her – and that the only way for that to happen would be for people to start circulating again. I’ve already mentioned to her about the nutritional info that Dr Kendrick has supplied in a previous post.
Then others warn about the ‘second wave’…well, I would imagine that those who were most vulnerable or at risk have already died, and that any ‘second wave’ will be far more mild than the first – particularly as more and more people are beginning to get the message that there are things we can do to improve our immunity. Plus, as we know, viruses like this are far less likely to cause problems once the summer arrives, so best to get it circulating before next winter so as to develop more immunity in the population generally.
This – http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n29.shtml
I think you are winning and Gates et al. are going to lose.
As Tom Naughton says, “ it’s the wisdom of crowds”
Oh dear! Personal attacks and insults are supposed to be left at the door while participating in a rational debate with adults. Besmirching another person in an effort to further your own agenda is both puerile and lamentable. I have known Dr Malcolm Kendrick for a number of years. Why did you trawl the gutter for that spiteful phrase “relatively unknown regional doctor” which you so thoughtlessly ascribed to Dr Kendrick? A little elementary research would have demonstrated that you are very wrong in your assertion.
Where did you learn that Malcolm is on the payroll of RT, and by extension… that somehow he must be a xenophobe like Tommy Robinson? I know Malcolm to be an honourable man. Assertions to the contrary from ignorant people such as yourself can never change the facts.
When do you suppose that work done, should not be paid for by the person or organisation who had commissioned the work? How much work, in which you use your own field of expertise, do you undertake to complete pro bono? Honesty is like virginity… once you are dishonest, there is no going back. Your assertions (I will not dignify them with the term arguments) are baseless and you had written them because you like to see your name in public. That being the case, you could see your name up in lights more often if you changed it to EXIT. Sad and squalid is what you are.
Totally agree Jeff. We all know the truth.
Unjustified personal attack and insults – amazing.
A homage to Dr Kendrick from us Swedes, our gifted jazz musician Gunnel Carling playing bagpipe swing for you.
Amazing – Oh My – Play it again …
They are not Scottish pipes, only one drone, our pipes have three drones. But by golly, that is superb playing – made my day – have shared with the family, so has pretty much gone around the world !
Wow, so if I understood this essay correctly, they emptied out the hospitals to make room for a projected influx of covid patients by discharging actual covid patients to places unprepared to care for them.
That’s about the size of it, Anna.
Not surprising to those of us who have had the opportunity to watch government decisions for more than half a century.
It’s really S.O.P. (standard operating procedure). Whenever a government takes decisive action after taking prolonged thought and taking “the best advice”, it invariably brings about the exact opposite of its declared intentions.
Well Anna, of course that was intended …the assumption being that care homes, being so used to ‘dealing with end of life care’, as a government minister stated, must be the ideal destination for the afflicted elderly. (Granted, some did get through the hospital gates, and happily survived.) Someone, somewhere must have decreed that the elderly were expendable. That is certainly my understanding.
The current aged population will remember ‘smallpox parties’. Perhaps the powers that be thought they would treat us to a bit of nostalgia…..C19 parties!
So, it will be interesting to see the emphasis put on ‘the grey vote’ for support in the next general election…..bring it on!
Correction, sorry..Chicken pox parties.
Test
Thanks for that Malcolm,
I trained in medicine at Nottingham over 30 years ago and had always thought that Britain had a robust approach to health issues, especially epidemiological issues, even if the NHS was starting to fail at that stage. I am and remain bitterly disappointed at the approach by the British government to Covid 19. It has not been one of ministerial decision-making in the context of sensible medical advice but rather a parallel approach to what has been happening in the United States. Of course, Britain also does things somewhat differently and in the past this was regarded as a good quality. My heart goes out to the workers in medical care facilities in Britain who from the very beginning of their journey in health tend to regard their work as a vocation. However this gets exploited and that saddens me.
This weird approach by the British government is just too upsetting and I feel very let down.
Luckily for me, I live in New Zealand and am very proud of the fact that the government here has worked with its medical advisors to produce a commonsense policy that has been well adopted by the public so far. Obviously it has its detractors in academia, but don’t we all? But New Zealand seems to be making some impact. Luckily we don’t have the same exposure/anguish in our day-to-day work with patients. Please know this, that health workers around the world have workers on the front-line in our thoughts.
Regards
Marcus
It’s very important you get tested for corona virus. At present you may have the thought you are human, and you get a positive test result. This may cause you concern, or relief depending on your point of view.It could be you are actually a goat, or a pawpaw. https://youtu.be/207HuOxltvI It could indicate the tests are unreliable, but that could never be, or could it?
Big problem: how to get a test?
BTW, let merecommend this essay to everyone here. It explains so much, especially why we’re dying like flies and in Africa, so few are dying in spite of the lack of health care. I know from own life in Africa 10 years, I ate better, healthier and more nutricious food than I get here in the G6 countries.
Click to access reversing-lockdown-pdf.pdf
barovsky, some of that essay I would agree with, but the sentence ”Not only did the general health of the nation scupper Johnson’s plan to build herd immunity two months ago, but the delay in lockdown caused by his mismeasurement of the health of the nation, enabled the virus to kill more people in Britain than anywhere else in Europe. ” Is pure opinion, and since we don’t really understand how diseases spread, we also don’t know how many people have died from the virus because the testing is unreliable, and inappropriate, not to mention non-existent in many cases but just opinion of whoever had to write out the death certificate.
Looking again at Sweden…
– Can we trust Covid modelling? More evidence from Sweden (The Spectator): https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-we-trust-covid-modelling-more-evidence-from-sweden
– Sweden’s coronavirus strategy will soon be the world’s – Herd immunity is the only realistic option – The question is how to get there safely (Foreign Affairs): https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2020-05-12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-will-soon-be-worlds
– Sweden’s coronavirus strategy is not what it seems (The Washington Post): https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/05/12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-is-not-what-it-seems/
PS: Vit D may play a part in the situation but ironically, it’s DIET and total POLLUTION.
For information, some comments from Chris Witty (See UK Boris Johnson Coronavirus Briefing Transcript May 11: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/united-kingdom-boris-johnson-coronavirus-briefing-transcript-may-11 )
On the second one, certainly I’ve tried and Patrick has tried, right from the beginning, to balance two things, the seriousness of this virus as an epidemic, and it clearly is a very serious epidemic, but equally the fact that actually the great majority of people will not die from this. And I’ll just repeat something I said right at the beginning, because I think it’s worth reinforcing. A significant proportion of people will not get this virus at all, at any point in the epidemic, which is going to go on for a long period of time.
Of those who do, some of them will get the virus without even knowing it. They will have the virus with no symptoms at all, asymptomatic carriage. And we know that happens. Of those that get symptoms, the great majority, probably 80% will have a mild or moderate disease, might be bad enough for them to have to go to bed for a few days, not bad enough for them to have to go to the doctor. An unfortunate minority, will have to go as far as hospital, but the majority of those will just need oxygen and will then leave hospital. And then a minority of those will end up having to go to severe and critical care and some of those sadly will die. But that’s a minority. It’s 1% or possibly even less than 1% overall. And even in the highest risk group, this is significantly less than 20%. The great majority of people, even the very highest groups, if they catch this virus will not die.
And I really wanted to make that point really clearly. And if you look at the curves, the second point, because of the work that the whole country has done, these are coming down, the deaths are coming down. The numbers of people in intensive care are coming down. Deaths in care homes are coming down. These are all very positive things. So absolutely want to reinforce that sense of perspective, but that doesn’t mean you can get away from the fact that if we did not do anything, if we left this virus to run, we would be back in a very serious situation that would threaten many lives and threaten the NHS.
I was just looking at the transcript you linked to, and saw this in the first paragraph:
“Sadly of those who tested positive for Coronavirus across all settings, 32065 have not died.”
Did he really mean to say that?!
Mr Witty is certainly a supporter of the government’s confused messaging strategy.
Holding Healthcare Hostage: The Making of a Ventilator Crisis
How big-business stopped cheap ventilators from making it to market, leaving nations vulnerable for over a decade to crisis shortages.
Check the name:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/healthcare-ventilator-crisis/5712725
It was a typical capitalist (or just standard greedy) approach to try and fix the market, but ventilators have proved to be not the solution to the problem.
further reading from Hope-Simpson; on the spread of flu epidemics ………
Von Magnus (1954) first described incomplete virus particles that are produced early in influenzal infection and have the property of interfering with the replication of standard infectious virions.
They are used in the laboratory to induce persistent noncytopathic infection of cell cultures,
……… and they are now known as defective interfering particles (DIPs)
………because even in very small numbers their presence can completely prevent the production of standard infectious virus.
Because DIPs are produced early during natural infections, the new concept suggests that they may form a part of the mechanism that switches the virus from epidemicity to non-epidernicity by producing the inter-epidernic carrier state that explains the survival of the virus during its apparent absence between epidemics.
The persistence of influenza virus and DIPs has frequently been demonstrated in cell cultures.
Latent or persistent virus has not yet been found in human carriers, but is being sought by modem techniques of molecular virology. The new concept offers a credible, if tentative, alternative to the current concept.”
The above was written in 1992, a couple of recent references below
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01852/full
Click to access 888.pdf
“Multiple-hit inhibition of infection by defective interfering particles (DIPs)”
One of the things asked in the Cannell paper and quoted by Dr K was ” Why do epidemics end so abruptly?”
More interesting stuff. I bet there’s not many people know that. Thanks Terry.
Ouch! I would have liked to buy Hope-Simpson’s book, but at near £90 I will have to think again.
indeed; there seem to be pdf versions available; can you find one online?
DRACO is being talked about now, a very complicated process. Here is a write up back in 2011. What made my day was a post as follows: This is promising but does not vitamin D at repeltion levels alreasy accomplish this? Much, much better is the fact vitamin D in the healthy, evolutionary correct range of 50-80 ng/ml, 25 OH, PREVENTS the common cold, Type A influenza infection, for starters. http://news.mit.edu/2011/antiviral-0810
Giving “anecdotes” more balancing weight in the rush to save COVID-19 lives:
Almost everything about COVID is unseen before. The temptation – as with any human endeavor – is for physicians-and-everyone-else to fit it into a known niche. Established protocols have probably been doing more harm than good.
I commend Hope-Simpson’s book to all who can borrow or buy it.
Hope-Simpson RE: The transmission of epidemic influenza New York: Plenum Press; 1992.
This should provide plenty of fuel for serious discussion:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2281-1
Read it first, if you’re able.
Then this is the NYT report it inspired – an opinion piece:
Try to give it all the benefit of the doubt.
I have scanned through the article. It appears to not discuss the medical issues, but just the social positions of the factions. It does not mention as far as I saw, but I could have missed it, that the anti-vax position is heavily censored by the social media. That puts a bias in the system. Further, this system analysis is relevant if you want to stop people who don’t agree with the narrative, anyone who disagrees is labelled as spreading misinformation. Disingenuous describes this well. This could go on for ever, there is no point. When the CDC, for example, commissions a vaccinated vs unvaccinated comparison, then there might be some benefit in a discussion, but given they attempted to destroy the data that showed an autism link to vaccines, that seems unlikely.
At about 1:12:00, perhaps this will encourage people to get vaccinated against covid 19, especially when the second wave comes. How clever the authorities must be to have forecast this. https://youtu.be/S2Nt5L8-MqI
I am concerned about the psychological effects on children when they are repeatedly vaccinated. The screams get louder and louder and I have little doubt that they learn to have heightened reactions to fear. This is a sorely neglected issue.
NHS vaccination schedule for children
Babies under 1 year old
8 weeks 6-in-1 vaccine
Rotavirus vaccine
MenB
12 weeks 6-in-1 vaccine (2nd dose)
Pneumococcal (PCV) vaccine
Rotavirus vaccine (2nd dose)
16 weeks 6-in-1 vaccine (3rd dose)
MenB (2nd dose)
Children aged 1 to 15 years
I year Hib/MenC (1st dose)
MMR (1st dose)
Pneumococcal (PCV) vaccine (2nd dose)
MenB (3rd dose)
2 to 10 years Flu vaccine (every year)
3 years and 4 months MMR (2nd dose)
4-in-1 pre-school booster
12 to 13 years HPV vaccine
14 years 3-in-1 teenage booster
MenACWY
Suzanne Humphries has done much vaccine research, Hope-Simpson has documented what he found, a style similar to Weston Price (ie look for evidence). Personally I don’t see the need for vaccines, my ancestors survived many apparent plagues, but some, including doctors think vaccines are great. That’s ok, they can have the treatment they choose, and get all the marvellous protection from these wonderful products and get their enviable protection against diseases, just don’t inflict it on people who don’t want it.
I agree, the trauma of seeing a needle that’s coming your way, is terrifying, I had few jabs, now I wouldn’t have any. I remember.
I think the eradication of smallpox must go to the credit of vaccination – together with other measures, of course.
Polio vaccines have got immense prestige, but seem to have appeared a few years after polio ceased to be a major threat.
Then there are diseases like measles and Covid-19. Authorities will always argue that “if it saves a single life, we must do it” regardless of the cost (to others). They also advance the pernicious argument that “if you don’t get vaccinated, you may infect others who may then die, and so their blood will be on your hands”. Quite a lot of “if”s there.
On the other hand, it seems that natural immunity through having been infected with a disease usually last for life and is often passed down to children (by their mothers), whereas artificial immunity from vaccination is sometimes short-lived and is not passed on. Thus a new generation is born who are dependent on vaccines – nice for profits, but their health is far more fragile than their ancestors’.
Rather like industrial monoculture crops, utterly dependent on synthetic fertlizer, insecticides and pesticides, yet seriously lacking in vitamins and minerals because of soil depletion.
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon”.
Perhaps the same holds good if one substitutes “life” for “God”.
Hi Tom: smallpox vaccination apparently is done by infecting the dermis with cowpox, there is no injection of adjuvants with a needle below the skin. All vaccinations are not equivalent.
If I should believe Suzanne Humphries, smallpox had already disappeared when a vaccine was available, as with polio. She wrote a great book which busted many myths about the benefits of vaccines – great reading!
Goran,
“Should” you “believe” her? I would say that if she and her associates are the only authors you’ve read on the subject, then you haven’t read enough to make a truly informed decision – as a good engineer might. This is particularly the case when “should” and “believe” type words are used to qualify knowledge. Not useful words for an engineer, I would think.
I know you like heavy books. Take a peek at this:
https://books.google.com/books?id=8IF8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=smallpox+Suzanne+Humphries&source=bl&ots=twI9EIhly-&sig=ACfU3U1dcxuqMyvk8h8XD6FJCCH3Ervdog&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE3ZuBubTpAhUTl3IEHeZwAMoQ6AEwF3oECDEQAQ#v=onepage&q=smallpox%20Suzanne%20Humphries&f=false
JD,
Talking “heavy books” about ‘true knowledge” I pulled the “The World of Parmenides” by Karl Popper from my shelf a few weeks ago and am in the middle of it just now and realize from my notes in my heavy noted copy that it is probable my third turn into this truly great book.
Talkning, Suzanne Humphries
https://drsuzanne.net
I find her very well read on the vaccine subject and consider her book “Dissolving Illusions” also a really ‘heavy book’, well researched and very convincing. “Words directly from the “horses mouth””.
I am convinced that she is not ‘very popular’ with Big Pharma and especially Bill Gates – adds to her ‘credibility’ in my eyes.
On the subject of Bill Gates see these very interesting recent videos on The Corbett Report:
Episode 377 – How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health: https://www.corbettreport.com/gateshealth/
Episode 378 – Bill Gates’ Plan to Vaccinate the World: https://www.corbettreport.com/gatesvaccine/
Another episode on Gates is coming soon. If you’re interested in the Gates connection, these videos are essential viewing…and they have transcripts and sources…
Tom, the scary thing is, vaccine proponents are admitting they’re shifting the human population to “dependency on vaccine-induced immunity”, i.e. this is what Heidi Larson said in her plenary lecture at the World Health Organisation’s Global Vaccine Safety Summit in December last year: https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2019/12/02/default-calendar/global-vaccine-safety-summit
In other words they’re stealing people’s right to their natural immunity.
And what is really alarming, is that alarm bells aren’t ringing about this! They’re seeking to interfere with natural immunity and make the population dependent on the vaccine industry – the ramifications are enormous. This is a global health emergency, and objective and independent specialists in infectious diseases should be talking about this as a matter of urgency, particularly with fast-tracked coronavirus vaccine products now being mooted for the entire global population with Bill Gates’ backing and domination.
The vaccination juggernaut is out of control, with little or no accountability, and discussion has been deliberately hindered and even censored by vested interests. We need to talk about this, it’s relevant to all of us, but the narrative has been hijacked by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their acolytes from the WHO down.
elizabethhart: It is indeed alarming. The only silver lining is that forced vaccination of the adult population will only succeed in totalitarian states the the PRC. Everyone I talk to is totally fed up with this of this quarantining of the healthy and forced face mask wearing.
Now for summat completely different –
Le or La COVID – the French Academy scratches their combined heads –
https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/le-billet-de-charline-vanhoenacker/le-billet-de-charline-vanhoenacker-14-mai-2020
Use auto translate –
NHS England – breakdown of deaths
Well, it’s finally all coming out: NHS England has published a breakdown of C19 deaths in England for the 1st time. A few basics I’ve read from the headlines of the 22,332 people who died since 31 March 2020:
(1) 26% had diabetes (Type 1 or 2 data not released)
(2) 18% had dementia
(3) 15% had chronic pulmonary disease
(3) 14% had chronic kidney disease
Plenty of which has been flagged up on this site from commenters and their links.
I wonder if any blood metrics are available? I’m thinking vit D3, vit C, selenium levels and so on.
So according to these NHS-supplied stats 73% had some other disease but that still leaves over 1/4 healthy. Pity no ages with these numbers.
Anticoagulation! : “Blood thinners” to avoid clots, strokes, MIs, and serious ischemia possibly causing lung damage and even amputation as in the case of a young NY actor – all in the context of COVID-19.
Maybe you’ve read that it’ll shorten your stay or save your life if you find yourself hospitalized with C-19.
What’s your take?
Here’s a brief article pointing out logic flaws in JAMA’s enthusiasm.
How about orchestrating the numbers to sweeten one’s favorite “symphony”?
“Flawed data can be worse than no data.”
This is a medscape article, for which you’ll need a username & password.
IMO, if you don’t have access, you’re not widely enough read to have the perspective to comment knowledgeably here.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/930504
JDPatten: Always appreciate your comments. The problem with Medscape is the user name and password. I can never remember them. There is a way around this, but it, too, is a royal pain in the derrière, so I usually give up in frustration. What is the point of gatekeeping like this?
P.S. NHS England C19 stats
Further to my comment on the C19 death stats released today, here’s a link to the NHS England website:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
The spreadsheet you want is under “Data” and “COVID-19 all announced deaths” and just click on the blue link which will take you to the data.
It’s comprised of 9 spreadsheets for 9 categories e.g. spreadsheet 5 is “COVID 19 total deaths by age” and the spreadsheet with the data I quoted is spreadsheet 9 “COVID 19 all deaths condition 2”.
A brilliant young oncologist has written a remarkably clear-headed overview of COVID019 – including much of what Dr Kendrick has pointed out.
Though an individual, he understands enough to realize that no one person or discipline is able to see the full depth or eventual consequences or the way out of this thing. It means working together.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/14/underderstanding-covid-19-supernova-human-history-multiple-perspectives/
Martin Back: Here are two links to articles about Peter Aaby and others in regard to vaccine safety:
http://vaccinepapers.org/high-mortality-dtp-vaccine/
https://thehighwire.com/why-do-vaccine-safety-studies-cut-corners/
Good article from a local news source here in sunny-disposition California:
http://sjvsun.com/view/we-misunderstood-coronavirus-now-we-underestimate-its-consequences/
Has anyone tried the SpaceX sim for docking to the ISS? It’s not so damn easy. I crashed on my first two attempts.
https://iss-sim.spacex.com/
I mention it because I’m sure game developers are rushing to code and release Covid-19 sims (which is what Prof Ferguson’s model effectively is). Putting you in the driver’s seat. Prof X says this, Eminent Epidemiologist says that, rogue scientist says both mistaken, how to distribute PPE’s when there are not enough to go round, clear hospitals and await the the rush while people die from not getting usual care, reputation in the polls, conflicting news from foreign lands, etc etc. What do you do? Could be fascinating.
I tried looking at that google book, it was nigh on impossible to read on my iPad, but I dis find a picture with a bumper sticker statement on it relating to “alternative” medicine.
“The “alternative” in alternative medicine is not any particular treatment. The “alternative” is a perceived reality with no burden of proof, no accountability, no grounding, no grounding in what we know to be real, and an insistence in being in opposition to the scientific consensus.”
Well well, “perceived reality” in vaccines is that they are safe and effective. From what we now know that is far from the facts.
“No burden of proof” applies to vaccines since 1986. Despite reviews which the health overseer was supposed to make, NO REVIEWS HAVE TAKEN PLACE.
“No grounding in what we know to b real”. Same for vaccines, they have no grounding in how diseases work, since there are disadvantages fo people who do not get some diseases, like measles for example.
“An insistence on being in opposition to the scientific consensus”. Since the “consensus” is manufactured by the manufacturers of the vaccines, who have no liability, it is totally untrustworthy. Secondly, as Tim Noakes said “when you’ve got consensus, you’ve got trouble. Sience IS NOT about consensus.
So that google book is as questionable as any other.
There was a critique written about “Dissolving Illusions” by someone called “Isabella” who was available only on twitter. This was comprehensively answered by Suzanne Humphries. One point about “Isabella’s” output was, it went through the whole of 300+ pages in detail, and was written a few days after the book was published. An impossible task. It takes longer just to read it. So who really did write “Isabella’s” work? It wasn’t just one person. Perhaps it was a group from a pharma company?
“Alternative” medicine is a misnomer. There’s no such thing, IMO.
Sasha said,
“Alternative” medicine is a misnomer. There’s no such thing, IMO.”
I am almost sure you are wrong. I had been plagued by sciatica for some months, and reluctantly I made an appointment to see the GP – which left me with a wait of more than a month.
Because of the wait, on an off chance, I rang up an alternative therapy place and they rang me back when one of their practitioners was free. Since I had absolutely no idea whether they would treat this problem – or how – I let him talk me through the options, and I was recommended acupuncture. I also checked if he was happy to treat me with my polio leg.
The guy was very open to questioning, and he explained that the conventional approach (beyond perhaps just pain killers) is to scan or x-ray the lower back looking for places where nerves might get trapped due to wearing vertebra. The problem with this approach to sciatica or arthritis (scanning the joint), is that these scans almost always report “wear and tear” in older people – even if the patient has no problem! He explained that both conditions are usually caused by muscles remaining tight in situations where they should be relaxed.
After one session of acupuncture, I felt significantly improved, but it wore off over a day or two.
After the second session, it was significantly reduced, and stayed at that level, and the third session wiped the problem out completely, so I cancelled the GP’s appointment.
There was one recurrence some months later, but after treatment I have had no further problem.
I know sciatica can come and go, so you might put this down to chance, but I persuaded a woman I know to follow my example because she had been plagued by intense pain after recovering from a fractured wrist. She was on gabapentin at that stage. She had a similar result – first time a big, temporary reduction, and second time, something near to complete recovery with no further need for painkillers!
These places do a lot of good, but sadly they are all closed as non-essential services.
David: what I meant to say is – There are only two types of Medicine, IMO: good and bad. That’s it. If you are suffering from sciatica acupuncture is good medicine for you. It’s not an alternative. Alternative to what? Crappy options like drugs? If someone has a burst appendix then drugs and surgery would be good Medicine for them.
Labeling things like acupuncture, herbs, Ayurveda, etc as “alternative” actually diminishes their value, I think.
Complementary is the term people tend to use nowadays.
I think complementary is also an incorrect term. TCM and Ayurveda, to use two examples, do not complement modern medicine.They are fully functioning medical approaches in their own right.
I’d just like to add, that judging from the practitioner I met, the alternate health people are well aware of many of the facts discussed here – the lack of risk from saturated fats, the importance of lowering sugar/carbohydrate intake, the horrible mistake in encouraging people with T2D to eat more carbs, the dangers of statins, etc etc. Once the needles were in place there was a wait of a few minutes during which all sorts of interesting conversations took place!
David: this is my opinion and, like all opinions, it’s subject to all sorts of biases. But… I went to a pre-med program in the early nineties and then to a TCM program a few years after that. In my experience, a good TCM student is vastly superior to a regular pre-med student.
In addition, those TCM practitioners who survive and prosper in the West have gone through a pretty rigorous selection process. They often exist outside the “official” medical system and aren’t supported by it. The attrition rate for acupuncturists is very high. I’ve heard it’s close to 50% but I can’t confirm or deny. So, if you meet someone who’s been in practice for a number of years and is doing well, it’s mostly because of their abilities as a doctor. And curiosity is a very good ability to have.
We have a wonderful 94 year old friend who is a widow and lives alone, with family nearby. She is believed to have some internal cancer but has not had hospital appointments, as yet, because of the virus. She says she doesn’t mind this at all. She cheerfully says that if she only has a few months left she is going to enjoy the summer sunshine instead of attending hospitals. I like her attitude.
Tish,
I like her attitude too!
At 94, I wonder what her chances of benefiting from cancer treatment as opposed to suffering harm really are.
If I get to 94, I think I will refuse any cancer treatment unless a non-toxic, non-invasive treatment for this disease has arrived by then (20 years on).
Tish, I hope your friend has a truly memorable summer–what a great example of a healthy attitude.
There is an article in off guardian by a German virologist explaining how a lack of an enzyme g6pd in people from malaria countries makes the use of hcq in treatment for cov 19 deadly for them.this may account for the excess deaths of people from Asian,mediterranean countries.
Sent from my iPad
>
Gavin, let’s hope the MSM in every country will put that information out there if it has merit. Perhaps if people are warned about it by experts instead of us laypeople, it could prevent some deaths in those groups lacking the enzyme and tempted to try hcq without medical advice.
and
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001339&type=printable
I was interested to see if I could pull up the Guardian article or any other link to the information – my search criteria as follows :-
<>
Interestingly, many links; so the facts of the matter are known, but how well publicised…??
Oops – my search criteria did not display, how odd – OK, try again :-
lack of an enzyme g6pd in people from malaria countries makes the use of hcq in treatment for cov 19 deadly for them
See what the vaccination clique is planning in Australia…
COVID-19: Civil liberties and the role of the state
Mandatory vaccination and COVID-19
As the race for a COVID-19 vaccine continues and much hope is placed in it to return our lives back to normalcy, Katie Attwell discusses balancing civil liberties and compulsory vaccinations and the role of public trust in ensuring sufficient coverage across the community.
http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/2020051412080/uwa-public-policy-institute/covid-19-mandatory-vaccination-and-covid-19
What a sickening read Elizabeth.
You can all rest easy now – “We want to emphasize there is a cure. There is a solution that works 100 percent,” Dr. Henry Ji, founder and CEO of Sorrento Therapeutics, told Fox News. “If we have the neutralizing antibody in your body, you don’t need the social distancing. You can open up a society without fear.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/california-biopharmaceutical-company-claims-coronavirus-antibody-breakthrough/ar-BB147Tvt?ocid=sl2 You can only hope it works and Bill doesn’t buy it up.
Or if you have been exposed to the virus, you will also have antibodies against it – made by your own immune system, and thus guaranteed not to include any animal viruses, nematodes, poisonous metals or human foetal tissue.
Moreover, the commercial antibodies will be fine until the virus mutates – which RNA viruses do very frequently because the reverse transcriptase they use to copy themselves to DNA is so extremely error-prone. But when a mutated virus enters your body, your adaptive immune system will generate antibodies against that, too.
It’s hard to beat Mother Nature. And most of the people trying to make big bucks out of doing so are actually just copying a few of her bag of tricks, or even just goosing her into action and then taking the credit.
This is not about politics and pulling people apart! It’s about humanity and pulling together! Accountability afterwards. Disappointed in you Dr! Btw my widowed daughter is a nurse so I know exactly what our frontline heroes have been going through! 🌈 I wonder why Russia asked you to write for them!
The BBC were completely uninterested. Also I wrote nothing that I did not want to write. I never would. You may gather that I also work on the front line having had thirty two patients die. Half if them definite COVID positive. The others displaying symptoms but no tests had been allowed.
So I clap for you Dr. every Thursday. A hero! However what I do not understand, why would you criticise the NHS? The greatest institution in the world! You did you know! I read your first paragraph and I couldn’t believe it! It’s not the NHS’s fault they didn’t have PPE’s etc etc! Surely or is it me they can only do what they can do with the limited money-resources, and numbers of staff that they have?! Have we ever been in this situation before? No! Of course I accept that’s down to government, and you know what maybe, hopefully because the Prime Minister nearly died the NHS will not now be up for grabs or rubbished by Tory politicians!! What I’m saying is, now, is not the time to criticise, or, the other parties looking for votes! Pull together because we’re all in this together! Then afterwards hold them accountable! I hate the idea that the Russians and Europe will have loved your article! I still clap for you though!🌈
You only criticise if you want things to get better. Staying silent when things go wrong, benefits no-one. All organisations should welcome criticism, without it how can they know where they are going wrong, and what to do to put things right.
Dr. Kendrick, I’ve been following these posts regularly since you started them in January 2016. I’ve studied them all, and worried over them. I’ve read most comments and replies, though I must admit that I scan for your replies first.
There is much to learn in this huge body of work.
I’ve read your books. More to learn.
I’ve incorporated much of what you’ve shown us all in the way I live.
With many notable exceptions, the feedback here has been trending towards an exclusivist monoculture of folk who present as disruptors – but who are, it seems, contrarians just-for-the-sake-of-it.
Much of this quite cozy circular “disruption” focuses on the denigration of the motivations, competence, and the ideas and accomplishments of Others.
These particular commentors’ Own, of course, remain infallible.
The stress from COVID-19’s intractable unpredictability might well be acting to concentrate this trend. There’s nothing like a real threat to how one views oneself and one’s position in the world to more deeply affirm oneself in that ego-view through one’s own perceived group.
It’s getting tiresome.
An earlier reply, from yourself, Dr. Kendrick:
“The reality is that, whatever they may say, people really want to be surrounded by people who think the same things and support each other. This ‘group think’ creates rigidity and means that systems are liable to complete destruction when confronted by unexpected, rapid, change. Changing this, the need for conformity… not sure how”
How many contributors here saw yourselves in that comment? (Anyone?)
The thing is, any of us could be so certain as to be blinded. . . . (Anyone? Hello??)
You who are the most deeply certain of your various positions, consider:
Open-mindedness with a healthy skepticism works in the world independently from personal biases. The Give-and-Take of a rational inquiry by a varied but open-minded community can arrive at a reasonable semblance of underlying truths.
(Here?)
The religion of committed certainty – that is, close-mindedness – cannot.
(Here? …Hello!!)
If you build a tall fence with no gate, you’ve built a prison.
It doesn’t much matter which side of it you’re on.
( I’d be pleased to accept any thumbs-up offered, but, in this context, I would be proud of the thumbs-down expected. 🙂 )
I’m only certain of one thing and that’s uncertainty!
My natural inclination is curiosity and asking questions. If it means challenging the status quo then so be it.
I do occasionally suggest a hypothesis but it’s never a position I take personally.
Being open-minded is hard of course and I will probably do all the human things like agreeing with a particular thought I have but it’s never a hard position.
Cheers and thoughtfully yours!
JD
I really wish i was clever unuff too no what you was on about
”With many notable exceptions, the feedback here has been trending towards an exclusivist monoculture of folk who present as disruptors – but who are, it seems, contrarians just-for-the-sake-of-it.”
JDP, Oh no they’re not. 😉
You certainly get a “thumbs up” from me, JD. I don’t want to be part of an echo-chamber, but nor do I think it’s right to be told to “move along” for defending someone who is called a cruel and derogatory name, or to be dismissed when encouraging someone to proceed with caution if they’re considering using a drug off-script. It seems that we’re not very welcome here if we don’t parrot the most popular views. Thanks for expressing yourself so eloquently on this subject and have a lovely Sunday.
JDP Agreed. What this blog does not need are cheerleaders. Everything must be open to analysis & critique & indeed welcome the mainstream “alternative” views, those that are suffocating MSM & stymieing rational debate. Otherwise the blog is a self satisfied mutual admiration society – sort of cosy quarantine. Good science is stronger under attack where the blog’s own immune system is allowed to strengthen and not be isolated. The blog’s immune system is truth, boosted by sound scientific research & a diet of common sense. The mainstream prescription with all it’s false promise, it’s fortune hunting, is something to query, to question, to not fear but understand it has its origin in the stock markets of the world & egos of careerists.
I note, Dr Kendrick that Steve referred to you as an “expert” this morning. Dont think you batted an eyelid.
Compelling & just sorry that I dont have kids of an age where medicine might be a consideration & they might be influenced by your pods.
Well I am not an expert, so I should have taken him to task on that. All I am good at, is asking questions, in an attempt to find out what is going on. I think I might actually be an expert question asker – if there is such a thing.
Thanks again Doc.
Dr. Kendrick: That is precisely what the best teachers do: they learn how to ask questions, the sorts of questions that elicit thinking. It took me most of my teaching career to figure that out!
“The greatest institution in the world!” Hyperbole and untrue. I say this having worked for five decades in the NHS. When you need your life saving, then free at point of service works really well. The NHS was brilliant when I spent 8 years in hospital as a child with TB and three years in a convalescent home. I could not fault the NHS when I needed a CABG, which privately, with all attendant aftercare would have cost many tens of thousands of pounds. What has not worked well is the hiring of the so-called captains of industry who have treated the NHS as a retailing operation and micromanaged the service without any clue as to what it means to be a healthcare service provider.
The recent case of the supply chain CEO earning £235,000 per year who was unable to do his job. A world class institution would not have hired him without any relevant experience. Instead, we have re-employed him! A CEO of one Trust where I worked being paid £280,000 per annum. He awarded himself a £30,000 pay rise and a £30,000 bonus payment in one year and yet the Trust was in the red at the end of April of the same financial year to the tune of £18,000,000! The panoply of idiotic leeches who are taking the NHS for every penny they are paid, without earning a brass farthing. The CEO who lost her job in the Southwest for incompetence and the Trust then found her a sinecure at the same wage! Stafford should ring some horrific bells, where care was not of any decent human standard. Who was prosecuted? Remind me because I cannot remember anyone going to jail for killing all of those patients, without reasonable excuse.
So when you use a term like “the greatest institution in the world”, it would behove you to look at the NHS with open eyes. Most of the issues today are generated by an indolent, supine and frankly daft management. The remaining issues revolve around there being only one cake and every institution is vying for a piece of it. In countries where the fees are paid by the patient (The Netherlands for example) whereafter most of the fee is repaid by the government, the institutions have enough money to hire staff and buy equipment. The holy cow of the NHS is not fit for purpose any longer.
I have to wait a minimum of five weeks if I want an urgent GP appointment! They staff do what they can in a multi-partnered practice but they are overwhelmed with patient demands, administrative paperwork and the lack of trained staff or time to complete their work. I consult with a private GP service by video phone call whenever I need a discussion with a clinician. It relieves the practice from the unremitting burden of dealing with chronic situations like mine. I hope by this means that it permits them to handle patients who do not have the same access to internet consultations which I can use.
Knowledgeable critique is essential if complacency is to be avoided. Striving to do better is a never ending task and excellence in patient care must be sought out at all opportunities. It does not matter which political colour of MP or lord you think is great or bad; because they have all presided over the disaster-filled reforms of the NHS, which have crippled its ability to function.
” I consult with a private GP service by video phone whenever i need a discussion with a clinician”
That says it all. It’s alright for some
I respect everything you say as an NHS worker. I was talking though about the nursing staff. The frontline, hands, caring staff. Certainly not the administrations part of it. That part is nothing short of an obscenity! The question is why are people not rising up against it more? The average person has no idea as I’m sure you’d agree. Let’s hope after this horrible, awful time things will change. I stand by what I say though, It’s the greatest institution in the word! It’s corrupt people who are letting it down!
I would suggest that the NHS is one of the worst organisations in the world. Fortunately, it does have the distinct advantage of having frontline staff who do the best job they can, despite the terrible organisation and management.
Jules, with respect, you know what your daughter has been going through, but I doubt all the NHS staff will have the same experience. One thing I think all the front line staff will have in common is the frustration having to put up with I’ll considered management edicts. So it is in the end, about politics.
Too right Jules
tommy robinson george galloway what creeps
Jules,
Nobody here has anything but admiration for he doctors and nurses that continue to work at considerable personal risk. This does not absolve people like Neil Ferguson, or those that told people to fear going out in the countryside, where the risk of becoming infected must be vastly lower.
However, after several studies show that Vitamin D reduces your risk of catching this disease and of dying of it, you might wonder why the NHS aren’t telling everyone to take this harmless substance.
There have been several recent posts referring to Judy Mikovits. How factual is this fact checker? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/fact-checking-judy-mikovits-controversial-virologist-attacking-anthony-fauci-viral
AhNotepad:
https://bolenreport.com/defense-of-dr-judy-mikovits-by-her-co-author/
People being mere . . . people . . . have a predisposition to believe what their cultural group believes. It’s a safety factor and a comfort factor. Evidence is completely beside the point – except as manipulated to seemingly confirm beliefs. We people are remarkably adept at that. The thinnest evidence if often preferred to the most profound.
An interesting point is that, generally, the more sordid the “facts” being put forward, the more attractive they seem to be to “Belief”.
Got anyone upset?
I’ll say additionally that the above scenario can easily be the case no matter what side you’re on.
Finally, reality has nothing to do with beliefs OR sides – one way or the other.
JDPatten: Your musings are always thoughtful. My view is that reality is what we each construct from what we see and hear, what we believe, and our life experiences. At least a little bit different for each of us. And we are all biologically different from each other. This is why a one-size-fits-all prescriptive treatment in medicine is a bad approach. For the same reason, the one-size-fits-all structure of instruction in our schools leaves much to be desired. I always presented the really important lessons in my classroom using three or four distinct approaches. This way, I learned from them, as they learned from me.
Gary,
The dream of reality that your (and everyone else’s) brain constructs – constituted of all that you mention – for you to be able to more simply and efficiently cope with your immediate world is not the real thing, and can get in the way of the real thing. What happens in your head has nothing to do with the way the tree in your woods that you never see fashions hard new wood every year from thin air and light and either breaks the boulder it’s growing on or swallows it whole. What happens in your head has nothing to do with the next asteroid that’s headed in your general direction or the next microbe that’s headed in your more specific direction.
Of course we’re all different. (I’ve harped on that enough myself. 🙂 ) So, I heartily agree with you that one-size-fits-all in medicine and in education is at least counterproductive and at its most egregious, can be a killer or a closer of minds, respectively. Which is worse??
(My wife, her brother, my daughter, and my sister are all teachers. Whew!)
So . . . um, what did you teach, Gary?
Sad but true
My mother’s account of her day in the hospital was “ two patients on the ward and an empty hospital”
Lions led by donkeys. Now where have I heard that before? 😢
My question is that as some common colds are caused by another form of the Corona Virus for which everyone tells us they cannot find a “cure” or vaccine even though they lead us to believe they have been looking for one for years, how come they are going to be able to get a reliable vaccine so quickly for Covid 19?
It not only would need to be ‘reliable’ but also safe – looking at the ‘viral interference’ that happened with the SARS vaccine that never made it to humans, I’d imagine it’s a nightmare in the making!
Lynda Cooper: They won’t. The smell of vast sums of money is causing them to make wild and absurd predictions. Corona virus appears to be one of those which is not preventable by vaccine. There are many such. Ebola is one. Scarlet fever (which is bacterial), as well.
A very good question, Lynda.
Some good people here trying to stop the questionable actions of the government, and standing up for our rights. https://youtu.be/GEZswxn5Ovw. I heard police officers saying people had been fined. This to my knowledge is not true. They were given fixed penalty notices, which were probably issued illegally, and could be challenged in court.
“Scientific” answers – even before anyone (Anyone!) has the wherewithal to formulate the right questions.
Which of these research papers did you want to believe?
https://www.takimag.com/article/no-cure-for-impatience/
JDP, I didn’t want to believe anything with unproven efficacy, just like the main stream ventilators, which have proved to be a murder weapon, where other treatments would have been more suitable earlier in the disease’s progress.
I wonder if there are any people “hoping” for a vaccine to fix the situation.
We invented numbers.
We try to view Reality through them, but we don’t always understand them, much less our own human biases.
Therefore, the ƒœ¢≤ing numbers lie to us unashamedly!
Or so it sometimes seems.
https://unherd.com/2020/05/what-the-headline-covid-figures-dont-tell-you/
I have been quite surprised by the number of criticisms Dr Kendrick is receiving because he wrote an article for the RT. Surely what should matter is what he wrote, not who he wrote it for? What he wrote was spot on. The criticism is very close minded, from people who sound as though they might be intelligent normally. Also it seems from reading these posts that there is a misunderstanding regarding the NHS. I think I would speak for most people in supporting the doctors, nurses, health care workers etc (of which Dr K is one). They are an entirely separate set of people from those in administration and management, who seem not to entirely know what they are doing, and should be called to account by those who do. Maybe we should talk about ‘NHS Workers’ and ‘NHS Admin’ so that everyone knows what is meant.
When the NHS moved away from the ‘frying-pan’ of Consultants playing God (see also Max Planck’s “science advances one funeral at a time”) it was hurled into the ‘fire’ of Hospital Trusts.
Those attempting to see ‘best practice’ in place in the NHS have been stymied at every turn, how can the NHS even consider establishing what constitutes best practice in all their hospitals when Trust controlled hospitals hide behind commercial confidentiality to protect their financial status at the expense of patients and staff.
Very well put.
Sue Richardson – I agree on all points. And what a super programme this morning. Thanks, Dr. K.
I thought this relevant to discussions here:
https://sustainablepulse.com/2020/05/13/glyphosate-overuse-leads-to-serious-immune-system-concerns/
This might be a good time to write to MPs about current dietary guidelines, since a lot of them will be worried about their excess weight. I don’t hold out a lot of hope but I have written to Boris Johnson since he is blaming his weight problem for his brush with death.
A critique of recent COVID-19 observational studies –– in plain English!
https://www.drjohnm.org/2020/05/covid19-and-finding-effective-medical-therapies/
An overview of the covid catastrophe by Dr. David Starkey. https://youtu.be/8S8Js-tEmlg
AhNotepad: Thank you for that link. Fascinating interview. Economic suicide indeed.
Hmmm… what do you mean by the phrase, “‘frying-pan’ of Consultants playing God”? where is your evidence for using such coruscating and pejorative terms? There are excellent consultant clinicians as well as consultants who are content with doing just the needful. You have used a blunderbuss to make a point that did not require you to denigrate consultant clinicians working for the NHS.
A little history may be instructive… the current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence was different in its earlier form. The difference underpins the gradual change in approach to the much vaunted (by clinicians) clinical judgement. The embryo NICE was known as CHimp. The Committee for Health Improvement was a body that met in various regional hospitals on a monthly basis, if my memory serves me well.
The name change was in response to the perception of mischief making by the civil servant who named the committee and decided how the name would appear in print. (the implied meeting between chimps was too inflammatory to let it stand) The subsequent name change was to NICE and the acronym represented the concept of a National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
Nothing wrong in that adequately descriptive name because clinicians and healthcare workers tend towards wanting to do the best work that they can. The reconstituted NICE was supposed to be a repository for all of the methods of effective medical care in use both within the NHS (and globally) and a means of discovering best clinical practice. These lofty ideals were the basis of the rationale for the inception of CHimp/NICE.
Later years saw micromanagement and the advent of industrialists and retailers being hired to fix the NHS so we all became customers instead of patients. Then NICE became the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The emphasis of the organisation changed and instead of being a place to discover the currently used and the best methods of clinical practice and to know how was carried out in places other than the local hospital, NICE became a prescriptive body. The guidance it published would now need the clinician to provide a rationale (excuse) for changing the treatment from the guidance handed down by NICE.
In one fell swoop, clinicians had given away their clinical judgement to a committee of worthies. Worse, the committees of NICE are filled to the brim with ‘stake-holders’. I object most strongly to that term, coined by Blair I think, because it denies the reality that we all have an interest in good healthcare. Drug companies should not sit on NICE committees… for while they may be stakeholders, it is not in any way that I would recognise. They have no business determining what drugs a prescription should detail, nor the dosages and most certainly not the duration of treatment. Their stake-holding could never be described as an arm’s length relationship.
Forgive the digression. Consultant clinicians, and all who assist them to complete their clinical work, are now ‘guided’ (ordered) by the decisions of NICE and the current trend in NHS medical practice has tended towards one size fits no-one. The pity of it is that I was trained really well by consultants who saw it as an integral part of their role to ensure that every staff member was on the same page with respect to how the work was to be completed for each individual patient. Mindless minions were never the norm nor were they required to do the work. We presented patients at a ward round every day and then had follow-up tuition sessions during which junior staff made clinical presentations… all of these sessions were attended by the consultant clinician.
There may well be better tuition models than the apprentice model but if you consider NICE as a tutor, who will not permit students to ask questions or deviate from the syllabus, you end up with poor teaching, poor understanding and a failure to encourage the development of personal clinical judgement. That is the tragedy of not so NICE as I see it.
As for playing at being god… if you ask a man to decide when to withdraw treatment (to stop striving officiously to preserve life at any cost; regardless of the suffering it causes) then you are asking him to play god because there are not many people who would want that responsibility. I have never met a clinician who thinks he is god during my 50 years of NHS service. The implication in your careless choice of words is distressing to me and strongly suggests that you don’t have any experience of clinicians playing deities. If you did have personal experience of one or even two clinicians with poor attitudes to their work and their patients, you are in error to imply that the consultants are all cut from the same cloth.
Jeff Cable, thank you for your posts with the experience of working in the NHS. i have only ever been a patient, most significantly in the late 1960s when the ward sister ruled, and rule she did. Patients were well cared for as a result, and if I recall correctly, the food was pretty good too.
Those old ward sisters did sometimes overreach themselves.
A nursing friend of mind, who trained in the sixties, once told me the following:
Mini-skirts had just come in, not as mini as these days, mind. Fashion-conscious nurses were in the habit of shortening their dresses above the regulation knee height. One shift, the ward sister stood the nursing staff on duty on the long central ward dining table and went round with a pair of scissors letting down all their hems, much to the amusement of the male patients.
Not all were amused though. Some wrote a letter of complaint and I gather higher management was not at all pleased.
It is always a difficult when running a hospital ward, to find the necessary balance between the discipline needed to provide good care, while at the same time promoting a relaxed atmosphere where patients can rest and recuperate. Personally, I tried to develop a subtle combination of efficiency, kindness and good humour, not always, I’m afraid, with the desired effect.
Well. I am fine in Sweden just now.
People are now rather relaxed here, as yesterday when we went to a coast side restaurant where we though were seated at “social distance” about 2 meters apart from the other customers. And there were equipment to sanitize your hands entering or leaving the restaurant.
Strong stuff with the mell of gin.
New post on jameslyonsweiler.com
Studies Show Effective Treatment – So Why Are Nursing Home Patients Being Left To Die with COVID-19 Untreated?
Another excellent Zach Bush interview:
I watched that last night – but it seems to have been edited as he didn’t say anything about masks…
Shame it had to be RT news which took this. RT instantly makes anything seem discredited because RT has so often proven itself as nothing but a Putin mouthpiece. This is a really good summary and, Mr Kendrick, you’ve had a far clearer view of this colossal threat to civil liberties, economic wellbeing and non-covid healthcare than any of the commentators which the BBC oicks up on. Shame that the mainstream media wouldn’t show your excellent arguments.
Iain, possibly some of RTs output is Putin Propaganda, but much isn’t. Western MSM most is government or industry propaganda, some isn’t.
Malcolm, on the one hand, not protecting the elderly. On the other, overprotecting them. And in both cases, scaring them to death. The fact is the very best protection for the elderly is their families. Time and again, I have seen examples, where failure of vision and lack of individual insight place the vulnerable at risk (my own family as well as my patients and friends).
Institutions invariably have many processes and standards, that good staff follow blindly or under duress, which individually may be caring but combined may be deadly. And then, sadly, is always the matter of abuse, neglect, or simple lack of awareness. Then there is the lack of reporting of outside ‘normality’ that allays fear and loneliness.
It is friends and family who provide the most important safety mechanism, the protections and balances for the vulnerable, and the reasons to live. If you isolate the elderly completely from their families, people will die, period.
“Institutions invariably have many processes and standards, that good staff follow blindly” I would argue that good staff do nothing blindly. If the staff are doing anything as an automaton then they are not good staff and should consider a different career, where obedience does not affect the outcome.
Jeff that’s an interesting response. Unfortunately the staff are often in a bit of a moral bind. They don’t want to break the rules, but they may feel as if the rules do not offer the best course of action always. It is best people who struggle most with these dilemmas, and they are the ones who tend to leave. I completely understand why a brilliant doctor might quit and opening a cheese shop. But then who is left behind, shaping our institutions?
This is just my observation. But the shock of the Gosport Enquiry was that Britain’s biggest serial killing was not due to a lone wolf in the community like Shipman, but actually took place in a hospital setting. This was only possible with the compliance, support and even protection of many good people, who no doubt struggled with the morality but had their hands tied by their own positions. That means the problem is institutional.
I must stress that the only criticism I make of most of the humans involved is that we all can fail to recognise the dangers of institutions that get too powerful.
My experience from the receiving end is that large institutions tend to prevail. They have a sort of immune system of their own, that tends to neutralise anyone – staff member or end user – that might bring about a change in direction.
Kuno, I see no moral bind between my responsibility to the patient and my responsibility to the institution. The duties and responsibilities that I have to the patient are, of necessity, more important to me than my duties to an organisation. I am a simplistic soul and when the imprecations from my professional organisation tells me that in all that I do professionally, I must put the patients needs first, I have no issue with that.
You mention Gosport but not Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust. The concept of worst crime in terms of serial killing depends upon how you view it. The potential 400 ~ 1200 needless deaths through very poor health care practices in Mid Staffs far outweighs the 450 deaths in Gosport from a deliberate policy concerning opioid drugs. The lack of a voice to advocate for the patients is very worrying. We should speak up for the patient when they cannot speak for themselves. To my mind, informed consent is just that, the information must be given and understood by all parties before it can be considered to be an informed choice.
Where the employing organisation creates the rules and regulations which seek to put its own needs before the patient’s needs, I will always serve the patient’s needs first. It potentially makes me a bad employee and it may well bring me into conflict with the employing institution but my personal and professional choice is to serve the patients above all else. I see no case where the needs of the patient will be subsidiary to the needs of the treating healthcare organisation.
Where something strikes a jarring note in the care of patients, then the organisation must always be informed and change must be initiated. I have hundreds of reports where I have written to the authorities of a trust because of poor care practices. (I can send some of them to you personally if you wish to confirm that statement) If one was to wait for the micromanagers and sinecure holders to initiate change that did not benefit themselves, the healthcare providing organisations would have become piles of rubble long before that day arrived.
I don’t see obstacles to providing appropriate care. My training made me question everything and ask the question ‘what do I need to do to make this better?’. It saddens me greatly to see how the NHS has employed four times the number of staff since I trained (400,000) and yet it does a very much worse job now. The surfeit of managers should improve matters and yet it does not.
In Africa, I worked in a specialist orthopaedic hospital for children and they employed one administrator. All of the other staff actually worked clinically or practically. When I asked why there was a lack of admin staff, I was told that the hospital could not afford to employ staff that added nothing to the clinical work.
On my arrival home, the hospital I worked in had around 60% of its staff working in admin or management. I will never subscribe to rules that glorify individuals or institutions and these days I am old enough and ugly enough to know them when I see them.
Jeff, good for you. In large part I speak from the receiving end of care, and from years of helping others pick up the pieces. I appreciate that is not the whole picture, but certainly the world can look rather different from that perspective.
It goes without saying that I have observed wonderful, thoughtful care also. Unfortunately there can be a point at which the views of the patient diverge from the scope of the institution, or the knowledge of the practitioners, and at that stage the scales invariably tip away from the patient’s will. Take for example, the practice of giving daily anticoagulant shots without any individual indication, only a blanket statistical indication. My mother refused to have them, but got them anyway. Nobody could honour her free informed choice, even in what was otherwise an excellent ward. I have many examples, some horrific, but I think it better not to discuss them in this sort of platform.
None of this changes the fact that the elderly and vulnerable need their relatives to support them, which is my main point here. In my view this is not an optional nicety, it is a necessity, without which their health and safety is at risk. Furthermore it shouldn’t need pointing out that our elders have earned the right to spend the end of their lives as they wish, and if that means taking some ‘risks’, such as seeing their families. Some may even have fought Hitler precisely for such principles. Depriving them of this is a very serious mistake, both ethically and clinically. Thanks for your responses.
Kuno, my view is that the endpoint of all patient care should be that it is delivered from the perspective of the patient. There is no other point to treating the patient. I would not countenance blanket treatment of any description and as for the use of drug treatments being handed out to every patient based upon a set of statistics, regardless of specific and personal indications… words fail me. Where was the pharmacist, clinician or nurse in all of that?
The biases which are found to be in present in RCTs, impartial observers, institutions, drug companies and people who want to push for a particular outcome are legion and very well documented. When we use the word ‘choice’, it is supposed to indicate that the person who has been given the choice is free to choose any desired position. The obvious (and absolutely required) corollary is that the choice made by the person will be honoured. Where a choice is offered, with the knowledge that the selected option will not be adhered to, the choice is just an illusion, no more than a statistical offer of a choice for the record.
I would not wish to make any special cases for the elderly and the vulnerable needing support. The inherent implication in that proposition is that the support of families and friends is required to a lesser extent for people who are neither classified as elderly or vulnerable. I also don’t care especially for the term ‘rights’ when discussing what we think is decent and proper handling when dealing with people who may need our assistance because of ill-health. Ascribing the nomenclature ‘right’ to a particular set of circumstances tends to turn the activities (so covered by the ‘rights’ umbrella) into chores that must be carried out in a certain manner or the actor is no longer compliant.
I do not deliver my patient care because of the laws or rights surrounding the care delivery process. I deliver the care according to best clinical practice. I frequently deliver that care despite the regulations, which may require me to engage in conduct that is often obstructive of the appropriate delivery of patient care.