Fascinating. Could one shot of radiation calm Covid infected lungs and stop the severe cytokine storm?
In a trial in the US, five very sick Covid patients with a median age of 90 were given a “low dose” (which is not so low) of 1.5 Grey (150 Rad) of Photon beam radiotherapy (in a front and back beam configuration.) It took only 10 – 15 minutes, and four of the five showed “rapid improvement” in 24 hours. Their oxygen levels and alertness improved. They were sent home from hospital 12 days later.
The good thing about this is that apparently most hospitals already have this equipment, so they could start helping people right away (assuming it works, which we don’t know yet).
Radiation isn’t anti-viral, it’s anti-inflammatory
In theory, the shot of radiation is not “killing the virus” but is changing the immune response — and may be able to stop the deadly cascade of the cytokine storm. It calms the immune system in at least three ways (see the chart).
Anti-inflammatory treatment for Covid-19.
The curious thing about this is that it is an old treatment, and an old idea. “Hormesis” is a phenomenon where low grade damage elicits a healthier response than no damage. It’s the idea that our bodies are adapted to low grade toxins and healthy repair mechanisms have evolved to deal with them. When we eat toxic plant molecules, we now know it ramps up our liver “detox” pathways — which means for example — that garlic and broccoli up-regulate phase II enzymes of cytochrome p450. The activated enzymes then also remove other toxins faster, so the net effect of low dose toxins is beneficial. People have been suggesting for years that low dose radiation might not only be safe, but useful. Though in all things “hormesis” the dose is everything. Too high a dose has the opposite effect of a lower dose.
Preliminary Data Suggests Low-Dose Radiation May Be Successful Treatment For Severe Covid-19
James Conca, Forbes
These studies indicated possible mechanisms by which low doses of radiation mitigates inflammation and facilitates healing, one being the polarization of macrophages to an anti-inflammatory or M2 phenotype. The M1 type tends to overstimulate the immune system which can lead to a cytokine storm, while the M2 type tends to suppress the overreaction of the immune system.
We kind of knew this would work because we did the same thing 70 to 80 years ago. Dr. E. J. Calabrese at the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health & Health Sciences and Dr. Gaurav Dhawan at the University of Massachusetts reviewed how X-ray therapy was used during the first half of the 20th century to successfully treat pneumonia, especially viral pneumonia like that caused by this coronavirus.
Unfortunately, 70 years of irrational and unfounded fear of low doses of radiation, even those doses that occur naturally in the environment, have prevented testing of many of these treatments.
How low is this dose? Don’t try this at home
According to this site, a normal background radiation dose is 0.00365 Gy (3,650 µGy or microGray). So a 1.5Gy dose is about 400 years of normal radiation. That doesn’t sound “low” to me! Though it’s only equivalent to 15 years of living in Ramsar, Iran, and 8 years on a Brazilian Monazite beach.
A full body 5 Gy dose will kill 50% of people within a month. So this 1.5Gy dose is rather serious. The docs report that there were no apparent side effects in these very sick 90 year old people.
Using radiation to treat pneumonia is an old treatment
When this tiny trial was announced in late April, they talked of people being treated with radiation successfully 100 years ago:
The investigators were inspired by the historical use of low dose chest radiation to treat pneumonia 100 years ago, citing research from the early 1900s that demonstrated improved survival as high as 90 percent treating patients with pneumonia in the pre-antibiotic era. Khan and Hess say the research also shows that pneumonia patients got better within a few days of receiving low dose chest radiation.
The therapy involves a single treatment with whole-lung LD-RT delivered on a quarantined linear accelerator, followed by a one-week observation period in which clinical, radiographic, and immune outcomes will be tracked for safety and benefit. Depending on the safety and benefit demonstrated by the first cohort, investigators expect to launch a second cohort of five patients. According to investigators, the inherent risks of LD-RT are low.
Given the not-so-low doses here, this is not a treatment I would want to rush into myself. But if I were 80+ and my choices were mechanical ventilation, or this, this trial would look pretty appealing.
Where is the data?
Frustratingly the sole report of this is the Forbes news story and it’s not explicitly stated if all 5 were sent home or only 4 were. Since the doctors were “excited” and no deaths were mentioned we presume that the fifth patient did recover, though even a 20% mortality rate in late stage severe Covid patients is not necessarily an awful outcome. Mortality rates are as high as 50% in this age group if they end up in ICU on a ventilator. No one is going to pretend a study this small is numerically significant, but the doctors obviously felt the results show great promise. Other doctors must be excited too. Trials are currently starting in the US, Italy, Spain, Iran and India (see the ClinicalTrials.gov website).
Clearly this is an interesting idea to toss about. Looking forward to some data…
H/t Ian B
REFERENCES
Shi Y, Wang Y, Shao C, Huang J, Gan J, Huang X, et al. COVID-19 infection: the perspectives on immune responses. Cell Death Differ 2020; 27:1451– 4. © 2020 Radiation Research Society
That is quite interesting. I have not heard of that treatment before.
Unfortunately the article reporting this news did not give the reference to the old research.
Radiation Hormesis is another interesting idea, which gets suppressed or ignored.
90
My mistake;
Jo referenced a review article on Radiation treatment of pneumonia before 1946 which itself gives a lot of references to original papers.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848110/
70
Hormesis goes against the LNT model if radiation sickness that the anti-nuke crowd, like Helen Caldicott, use to scare the public against any notion useful nuclear reactors (even our existing one that is used to produce medical isotopes)
70
Fascinating, and especially good to know that our exposure to normal background radiation from the Sun and galaxy reflects a possible beneficial evolutionary adaptation on our way here.
Ain’t evolution grand.
T’would be interesting to know from life expectancy records whether this shows up as an obvious benefit.
Probably too many factors to distinguish.
KK
103
Interesting in the light of speculation that the identified association with VitD may be something to do with VitD being a good proxy for exposure to solar radiation more generally.
……. access to which the lockdown denied us so much.
30
A low dose of energy would dissociate the water molecules in the radiation’s path. This would have a dramatic effect on blood movement through tiny blood vessels. Such a treatment may be beneficial to many disorders involving clotting blockages.
An MRI would work in a similar manner to radiation therapy. The energy flux from the MRI would be less effective. If a very low dose is required an MRI may be easier to do for more patients.
This is why you feel better when walking in sunlight.
120
Jo
Anti inflammatory? That’s interesting. In 1997 I had an operation and went into the operating theatre clutching my blue ventolin inhaler as I suffered from Asthma and whilst never severe, meant I used the brown and blue inhaler several times a day, especially in the pollen season.
From that day to this I have never needed to use it again. I always assumed that perhaps the anaesthetic somehow had an impact, as nothing else changed to have caused this effect.
I may suffer a little light hay fever at the peak of the season, but certainly the asthma has-touch wood- disappeared. Is an anaesthetic anti inflammatory or is its purpose and effects quite different?
90
The most interesting point is the possible beneficial effect of scans. Did you have any preliminary scans?
Don’t know about potential benefits from anaesthetic but it’s known that in major operations it’s a general anaesthetic that “knocks you out”.
Unfortunately, the human neurosystem being the tricky little devil that it is, stores the record of pain and trauma for you to experience after you wake up.
This is fixed by administering a local anaesthetic in the immediate area of the operation before starting.
KK
14
Kalm Keith
No, it was for a detached retina which they examined visually. I don’t recall a scan of any sort. I refused a ‘local’ very forcibly as the idea of being awake whilst someone works on my eyes make me squirm. I cant even put in eye drops!
It was common when having an annual dental check for an xray to be made of your teeth at which the dentist would scurry out of the way. Perhaps THAT has an effect, as many older patients will have had dozens of those, but I suspect we are talking about different impacts to anaesthetics.
50
Hi Tony, interesting.
I think we can all relate to the difficulty of facing an eye operation.
The point about the local wasn’t that it wasn’t an either or situation, but both are needed.
The general leaves you unaware while the local stops any storage of pain memory.
03
Correction.
“The point about the local wasn’t that it was an either or situation, but that both are needed.”
13
Interesting as I recently had cataract surgery. The first op on the right eye the anesthetist administering the relaxant missed the vein and went into the muscle in the forearm. I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists throughout the procedure although had no pain as the local anesthetic worked a treat, although the left arm felt like it had been hit with a baseball bat.
I made sure that the anesthetist (different one) was aware of this before the second op. He assured me that he would give me plenty of the good stuff in the right place this time. It was much more tolerable.
40
Work on figuring out radiation hormesis continues.
(look it up, there is lots of research)
It may be that a small amount of radiation is quite beneficial, maybe even necessary.
82
A small amount of radiation is essential to life itself. Our veins are coated with a 2D layer of hydrated hydoxide structure which needs IR & UV to form and rejuvenate. This layer can be hunfreds of layers thick. The negative charge is literally our life force and allows blood to freely flow in tiny veins. Our heart would not be able to supply enough pressure to do so normally. Dissociated water acts as a di-electric, a biological supercap.
Lots of work is being done on this at the University of Washington. Full understanding will cure and prevent many common diseases. Viral attack and auto-immune response is a small part.
90
A small positive peek into a better future.
After so many distressing months of viral uncertainty and human victimhood and distorted perception of morality, it’s good to have news that is Real.
KK
10
Very positive news Jo. And great writing.
42
Forgot to attach the interview.
podtail.se › take-control-of-your-health-with-dr-mercola
Natural health expert and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola interviews Judy Mikovits, a virologist, researcher and founding research director of the …
21
Jo,
Have just finished reading the attached interview and thought it could be of further interest with the claims of possibly successful treatments in the Coronavirus pandemic.
It is an interview of molecular biologist Dr. Judy Mikovits by Dr. Joseph Mercola and is titled “Is SARS-CoV-2 a Manufactured Virus?”
Dr. Mikovits claims in the interview:
“. . . So now and as our work proceeded in looking at what were clearly retroviral-associated diseases, like, clear to us, chronic fatigue syndrome, many of the cases of autism, cancers, leukemia, lymphomas associated with retroviruses, and we discovered the first human gammaretrovirus family of retroviruses, known then as XMRVs, and isolated those in 2009. So they’re XMRVs because they’re xenotrophic. They’re not found in mice. They’re found in humans. So murine leukemia virus is the M, XM, mouse cancer-causing-related virus. So here you’ve got something named very badly but not based on its phylogeny, based on where the discoverers, who weren’t virologists, found the sequences in aggressive prostate cancers.
Dr. Judy Mikovits continued:
“So we looked for the signature of disease, which is, again, relevant to COVID-19, because we know many, many coronaviruses. There are many coronaviruses in the world, and they’re largely non- pathogenic. They’re not highly pathogenic because they don’t cause this inflammatory signature of disease that suggests the immune system out of control that can’t be regulated.
“So this was our work for the last four decades, Dr. Ruscetti and I. So, again, we’re being led down a path where we learned in 1991 that you could have HIV and never get AIDS. So if you employ the right treatment at the right time, then you stop the replication of the virus, you stop the reservoirs, you stop the immune destruction, and that could easily have been done in the case of SARS-CoV-2 with the simple Type 1 interferon at very low dose, which has 40 years of research and more. I was part of the team that first used the immune therapy, a purified Type 1 interferon alpha, and used it as a curative therapy for a leukemia. (emphasis added)
Worth reading the whole interview. “Haemophilic Holocaust” by South Australian anaesthetist Dr. Richard Davis should also be read in the light of the present pandemic.
podtail.se › take-control-of-your-health-with-dr-mercola
Natural health expert and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola interviews Judy Mikovits, a virologist, researcher and founding research director of the …
21
The Judy Mikovits video offers a treatment. The video has been around awhile. CDC Fort Detrick (De-Trick, is a name of pure irony) probably have this style of treatment available for military use now.
Big pharma wants a va$$ine. Not a low cost treatment.
Government wants to print money to save us from them.
The print run is used to buy government bonds from bankers which they were forced to buy from the Federal Reserve. The bankers are then forced to buy Federal government bonds at a low rate of interest, (in the EU its negative), to cover their Federal Government controlled capital requirements. The Federal Government then gives this money to happy to receive it for doing nothing, voters and happy to receive it, bankrupt, States.
None of this merry-go-round is going to change for the better. The losers are anyone not yet old enough to start working, the un-born, the self financed retiree and independent non-government business owners etc.
A va$$ine means the problem never goes away. This $ow can be milked for as long as po$$ible. A treatment means it end$.
120
Well put Geoff.
10
Hmmm… how come all the reference names are Chinese if this report comes from the United States? I smell a rat.
20
The reference is a paper the team mentioned. Their own work is not published anywhere yet that I could find (which was frustrating).
43
Is “the reference” referring to this?
“How Radiotherapy Was Historically Used To Treat Pneumonia: Could It Be Useful Today?”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848110/
If not, please identify the reference in question and I’d be pleased to find it and its ken.
40
Radiation hormesis seems to have been put on the back burner after penicillin became widely available – around 1948. Once the efficacy, ease of use, and profitability of antibiotics became established there was no incentive for pharma, and their partners in crime, to do anything other than brief against the use of ‘dangerous’ radiation in medicine and they had the negative effects of the twin atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945 well cemented in the public psyche to make it easy for them to pass off all radiation as being dangerous. Remember the Strontium 90 scare promoted through the 1950s and 1960s skilfully linked to levels in a staple food like milk?
Seventy years later maybe the wheel has almost turned full circle? Some of what we’re told about antibiotic resistance seems to be FUD based on papers which claim some strain or other is resistant to an antibiotic of last resort without telling us it can still be controlled with a cheap mainstream antibiotic. Low-grade sensationalist media reporting serves the intended deception well. Pharma can’t make money from antibiotics that work and only cost $2 per 100 pills so they need to try and push prescribing habits onto more expensive products. Anti-viral drugs are still a work in progress and apparently highly profitable to pharma. Vaccines, some of questionable efficacy, are highly profitable for pharma. The emerging science of manufacturing antibodies as an alternative to vaccination looks like another money-spinner…
In its early development radiation hormesis was used with some apparent success against both bacterial and viral conditions. Anecdotal evidence claims it has saved gangrenous limbs from amputation – given the number of amputations now happening as a result of diabetes you might think primary and secondary care practitioners would show some interest in alternative therapies?
The suggestion that radiation hormesis may have saved these 5 elderly Covid-19 patients from a very high probability of death should cause shockwaves in medical practice but my guess is the vested interests will do their best to try and bury this technique again. IMO current medical practice tends towards excessive surgical intervention and/or loading up the immune system and organs with cocktails of drugs which cause additional physiological challenges. Follow the money… Doctors know that a lot of conditions are self-limiting because our bodies take care of themselves.
Imagine if a century old technique for uplifting the efficiency of the immune system to promote self-healing could be re-invented, refined, and mainstreamed? Unlike the pioneers, we do now have the clinical chemistry to understand how and if this technique works and we have much better technology for delivering precise doses of radiation to target areas of the body or the whole body.
143
Good one.
33
Maybe it’s the times in which we live, but my first thoughts were the same as Rick’s above.
Would be interesting to know the duration of the effect, and the effective minimum dose.
Similarly, it could be of interest in ameliorating the course, or severity of the autoimmune diseases such as Lupus, Rheumatoid, Sarcoid etc. Then there is the balance of risk versus age
and life expectancy and its place in such a treatment.
Interesting. Lots of ifs and buts, Jo. Something to keep abreast of as knowledge in modern medicine (and all else) explodes. Not much room for Jacks of all trades these days. The miracle of computers.
20
Low Dose; It is all relative!
It is a lot of radiation , unless you are a radiotherapist. A typical radiation dose used in breast cancer treatment is 40-50Gy according to one reference I consulted. That would be fatal if given to the whole body. Of course the intention is to kill the tissue containing the cancer cells but keep it to a minimum part of the body.
101
THank you. Thats a good description.
31
Good clarification PC. Thanks.
00
just remember dose is incident energy times time usually expressed as micro or mili Sv/h. The raw energy of the beam can be misleading with regards to dose.
41
Gray/Seivert! Roentgen, rad, rem.
Fortunately the activity factor for photon beam radiation is 1, so while Gray and Seivert mean different things they are interchangeable in this particular case.
20
true – it is the time factor I was introducing and also the difference between dose and exposure. It makes little practicle difference to most people whether they know these things or not. The people (I mean scientists from non radiological fields – ie me – as few others have this pattern of usage) who I observe to get tied up in knots with these units are the ones who use them occasionally as there is no simple way to remember (or recall from being told a year or two ago) what is used in what circumstance.
11
You have confused me here professor.
You say the dose is “incident energy times time” then express that as Sv/h.
Incident energy is the dose (expressed in Gray or Seivert). Sv/h is incident energy divided by time (ie dose rate).
30
Maybe a look at https://www.xkcd.com/radiation/ might help clear things up.
00
Sorry should be https://www.xkcd.com/radiation/
00
sure divided… per time is what I should have written
20
Proton beam? Photon beam won’t do much (lasers excepted).
00
Ok. I’ve looked it up and I’m wrong.
20
A few decades ago I read a fact article in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, that mentioned “If it weren’t for it’s non-physical nature, radiation meets the definition of being a vitamin”, or words to that effect.
40
Our A-level Physics GCE course included a visit to Aldermaston near Reading (AWRE I am sure it used to be known as but it seems to be AWE these days). In the course of that visit we were informed that Brazil nuts were the most radioactive food known. It is the one thing I remember from that visit!
40
Not only selenium in Brazil nuts but maybe useful small dose of radiation?!
60
Annie
Don’t forget bananas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
20
Indeed. A Banana Equivalent Dose isn’t a very definite amount, is it?! We see so many different sizes?
10
I note that CAR T-cell therapy (Chimeric Antigen Receptor, a type of blood cancer treatment that programs a patient’s own altered white blood cells to kill cancer cells), is frequently accompanied by cytokine storms. I can see the possible difficulty with using radiation hormesis here, but it might well be a useful tool in the management of that anti-cancer technique. A car with engine and brake is so much better than a vehicle with just one or the other.
00
“A full body 5 Gy dose will kill 50% of people within a month.”
It is all very interesting because there have been several drugs (all of which have the potential for being toxic in high enough doses)that have been reported as being useful against COVID-19. In the case of hydroxychloroquine, the recommended dose (by advocates) is about half of the LD-50. That might also explain why an anti-parasitic drug is useful for an autoimmune disease — hormesis. HCQ could work by a different mechanism than what has been touted as the rationalization, namely, a facilitator for zinc. There is a lot we still don’t know!
50
G’day Clyde,
Dr Been, at about 40 mins, describes 4 ways hcq acts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5JgieJJVkk
Cheers
Dave B
00
While killing 1 in 5 in this study is spun as a good outcome (against the supposed control of 1 in 2) it is not ever going to be an ethical treatment.
I should also point out that radiation doses are cumulative, and that your average X-ray (as an example) technician could not even tell you what the dose of one X-ray will be. If you don’t believe just ask next time a dentist suggests you get your teeth x-rayed.
44
I support your argument.
You might find this recent post by Eric Worrall interesting.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/13/claim-in-vitro-tests-suggest-the-new-york-covid-19-strain-is-more-infectious/
20
And I support you too el g, because I’d not like you to feel that you were unsupported.
30
Where was 1 in 5 killed, Peter?
31
Peter,
I understand your apprehension;
“I should also point out that radiation doses are cumulative,”
If you do go outside, especially during the day, it’s essential to use a lead umbrella or a tinfoil hat; your choice being determined by whether you prefer reflective or absorptive protection.
https://images.app.goo.gl/2JxonGKdPuM19Naq5
This might help with choices and some of the lead used now is rolled real thin.
KK
42
Let’s not forget all the radiation from coal ash used in cement and concrete mixes. 😉
Its all around you .. ALWAYS.!
12
Also the Radon, which in Australia, is in the limestone used in cement as well.
05
Poor thing ! You must be scared out of your wits.
Which would explain your comments.
21
And don’t forget New York –
Manhattan, the ground radiation there is bad news.
The underlying rock is “virile”.
Don’t stay down in the basement too long or you’ll end up with blisters.
KK
14
Funny how the radon gas problem in New York is almost non existent on the web now.
Bad for real estate so it has been disappeared.
Note however that you should still get a radon gas check before buying in NYC.
KK
20
Are they? Maybe in the very short term eg a radiotherapy treatment cycle.
What about over longer periods of time?
21
Some homework
Draw a graph with age on the x-axis and number of skin cancers on the y-axis. Report back what you see.
16
Distracting again Peter ?
Wasting time and energy again Peter ?
22
“Draw a graph with age on the x-axis and number of skin cancers on the y-axis.”
That in no way indicates that radiation doses are accumulative.. Another Fitz red herring !!
In fact, from the Dept of Health….
So while radiation can accumulate over a shorter period, eg medical procedures..
… over a long period the effect of the same total amount is much less.
Totally destroying your baseless argument.
In fact, exposure to background radiation is totally necessary. see #4.2.1
31
Also
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162170#1
Yes, you really should do some more homework, Fitz. !
31
Wow.
Sorry Young Peter, but if you are outside your skill set you probably shouldn’t start offering up examples that reinforce that fact to observers.
You ask us to provide graphs comparing age to number of skin cancers, with the clear implication that we are going to get a nice linear line that shows the older you get the more skin cancers you obtain.
Problem here, Young Peter, is that your original claim is that radiation is cumulative. Skin cancers are not radiation. The implication you are attempting to make is clearly that radiation causes skin cancer, or in simple terms, double the radiation then double the skin cancer production.
This would mean that as the cumulative radiation increases you obtain NEW cancers faster.
So if we assume a linear increase of cumulative radiation over time we can expect something like this
Age 1 = CuRad 1 = new cancer 1
Age 2 = CuRad 2 = new cancer 2
Age 3 = CuRad 3 = new cancer 3
Age 4 = CuRad 4 = new cancer 4
Linear.
However TOTAL cancers
Age 1 = total cancer 1
Age 2 = total cancer 3
age 3 = total cancer 6
age 4 = total cancer 10 etc etc
Non linear.
To word it another way an older person will have contracted more Christmases than a younger person. That does not mean that the older you are the more likely you are to contract Christmas. The odds of catching Christmas each years is still 1.
Radiation, in general terms, does not make you radioactive. It damages you. If rate of damage is greater than rate of repair then you are basically screwed because body parts suffer critical failure and you die. Don’t try this at home. If rate of damage is less than rate of repair then you, usually/hopefully, get better. You do not remain partly damaged unless you have crossed the line where the damage received starts preventing repair.
What is the amount that ‘crosses the line’? Well hard to say, so rather than set a ‘safe’ amount the default safety instruction is don’t take the risk and avoid all exposure as far as is reasonably practical.
Remember in the real world there is no ‘Safe’. There is only minimising risks. If you get something fuzzy like radiation where it may or may not cause you irreparable damage depending on the dosage rates then the smart thing to do is to not give an answer.
If you do give an answer – X is safe, X+1 is not – then people will start to expose themselves to X because they were told it is ‘safe’. Standing at the top of a cliff will not kill you. Falling off same cliff most probably will. So is it ‘safe’ to stand at the top? Well… provided there are no errors, but unless you really need to be at this cliff top, how about we just stay away from it?
Remember, Young Peter, in the real world there is no ‘Safe’. There is only Risk, and Minimising Risk. ‘Safe’, in pragmatic practical terms, is a lie.
Also wear a hat. Sunsmart! 😀
23
Peter F, are they cumulative? Even with melanoma I don’t think anyone found a simple linear dose to disease ratio. Lots of small doses of sunlight, I believe were in no way as harmful as multiple overdoses with not much in between.
There are also multiple different kinds of radiation, and I suspect even if one sort is cumulative that I would not assume that is true of the many other forms.
PS: We don’t know that one person died. As I said, I presume they would have said so if that was the case. I would like that data!
41
I can not believe you have asked that, if its not cumulative, then what is it?
As to the red herring of linear dose and melanoma, you would have to correct for all the other variables like genes, location, season, etc. There are around 800,000 results for google scholar on this topic, and none of them mention linear in their headings.
34
The alternative is stochastic risk. It is similar to accumulation in some regards.
Stochastic risk is basically that a time interval clears away the previous exposure risk (unlike smoking where previous smoke leaves an indelible residue). Risk of a cancer is then dependent on the same chance of mutation for each exposure. The more exposure events the more chances. It can still be dosage dependent in that an individual exposure’s risk can be correlated with the dose but still not be cumulative.
61
Neither Stochastic or Cumulative need a linear component.
34
Great to see you are admitting that your age v cancer graph would have been meaningless.
You really should think before commenting.
Try it, just once !
31
“800,000 results for google scholar on this topic, and none of them mention linear in their headings.”
Did you look up rectilinear?
Bet you forgot that.
30
Jo is totally correct.
Accumulative over short periods of treatment, not with smaller natural doses over longer periods.
Effect decays.
I can’t believe you would think otherwise.
Small background doses are very necessary , see #4.2.1….. and learn something !
… if you are able to.
32
Hi Jo
Is it cumulative? Good question. Intermittent exposure to alpha, beta or gamma particles at lower levels may not be so much of a problem. Although I would imagine the chances of DNA damage would increase with repeated exposure.
The real danger from radiation comes from continual exposure to a radioactive substance. At one time it was fashionable to add Radium all sorts of food and drink products due to the supposed health benefits. Turns out that the body will use Radium as a substitute for Calcium in bone cells and once lodged in the bone structure the Radium atom will sit there throwing off radiation constantly causing damage to the surrounding tissue. The increased rates of bone cancer, particularly of the jaw, put an end to that fashion. I guess radioactive Iodine works in a similar way when it gets lodged in the thyroid gland.
Anyway I wouldn’t be racing off for this treatment, or any other, until it had been scientifically proven to be effective.
20
do you have anything to back up the use of the word “real” there. What you describe are real consequences, but they are not from any disease stats or biological process data that I know of worse or more significant than other radiation risks.
This is a highly complex area where many biological processes are interacting as well as the interaction of the radiation with biology.
01
You are talking about ingesting a radioactive substance.
Totally different aspect from external radiation.
21
In the nineteen twenties and thirties there were Radium Spas where you could get the “benefit” of mineral water naturally enriched with radium. There is still one Radium Hotel operating in Czechia.
I don’t know what the health effects were but they were popular esp. in times when TB meant a slow death.
On the question of cumulative this depends on the rate at which the body can get rid of the toxic thing. Lead, for example, can be excreted fairly quickly whereas cadmium basically remains, so repeated exposure to them would have different effects.
20
Low-Dose Whole-Lung Radiation for COVID-19 Pneumonia
Planned Day-7 Interim Analysis of an Ongoing Clinical Trial
As at the end of day 7: Johnny 5 Alive!
Some scientific yada yada about “biomarkers” not yet at a level to wean the subject from oxygen.
—
As for the treatment being unethical, I have to disagree.
Covid deaths for the 80s uppards are about 15%.
Even if Johnny 5 had snuffed it, a one in five chance for those actually knock, knock, knocking at Heaven’s Door seems pretty good odds.
And, of course, nobody is forcing you to take it.
(As long as you remain compos mentis.
Otherwise the family just might …)
…
Or is it the radiation procedure that you find unethical?
Well, that has been covered elsewhere.
—
When I were nobbut a lad, the shoe shops had X-ray machines to ensure that the shoes would not deform our feet.
Never did me any harm. As long as I wear thick socks, the glow is scarcely noticeable.
Talk about being light on yer feet!
30
Yes. Thanks for bringing that back. Crazy that such technology could be found in the shoe shop.
🙂
10
Where ignorance is bliss …
(Or, perhaps, blisters?)
☺️
00
Sweden’s epidemic is ending.
What will team doomsday now say?
“Sweden last week recorded no excess mortality compared to the average of the past five years for the first time since COVID-19.”
Sweden records first week with no excess mortality since pandemic struck
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23F1WK
92
So Travis, how many weeks of excess mortality have there been in Sweden ?
And how many have died ?
Well actually I can tell you that. It’s 4874 dead.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Another question – How many Swedes are still impacted with various ailments as a result of being infected ?
No one really knows .
Reuters is just another MSM with a message to propagandise about.
07
Travis, though the cases are rising and I don’t believe you have any data at all on the hospital burden, the deaths of healthcare workers, or the ongoing potential damage to the 5% of the population who may survive but not be quite the same. Or the ongoing cost of healthcare, and the lost economy due to people staying home in fear, or not spending due to uncertainty. Or the lost economy because travellers won’t be visiting Sweden for how many more months?
An epidemic is so much more than just a death toll.
53
Hi Ms Jo.
Indeed the link fails in supplying a detailed account of all you list, plus supplying any ‘known unknowns’ as well.
But, it does claim data from Statistics Sweden, which might be just propaganda as Bill of Oz suggests.
It could only be a small part of a complex puzzle/experiment which never is completed, of which I am still trying to comprehend the consequence of.
The stats are not disputed, (of course one death is too much, a discrepancy of 100+ as well) as Bill of Oz shows (reuters total: 4694, BoO: 4874)
If true though, team doomsday (elitist global warming politicians of all stripes and bureaucrats) will have to dig their hole deeper to justify the draconian, economy destroying decisions they have foist upon us, plus the social destruction you list.
50
The human devastation from this lockdown, outside of The Virile Virus, is yet to be accounted for.
Keep a watch over the next six months.
Measures.
Youth suicide.
Business owners suicide.
Domestic “violence”.
The accounting is nigh.
51
I really don’t know what level of contrary evidence would convince you.
Repeating the same old stuff doesn’t make it suddenly become true.
I’ll address just the economy.
https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/united-kingdom-gdp-growth.png?s=ukgrybzq&v=202005130638V20191105
https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/united-kingdom-gdp-growth.png?s=ukgrybzq&v=202005130638V20191105
Could the damage of a hard-lockdown be more obvious?
10
Sorry!
https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/sweden-gdp-growth.png?s=swgdpaqq&v=202006012125V20191105
01
Mr Grim, I’ve never said lockdowns cost nothing or are good for the economy.
The reason why you wonder “what will convince me” is because we are having (apparently) two different conversations.
I’m saying the cost of letting the virus run is worse than the cost of a short sharp lockdown and a likely quick recovery with 97% of the economy back asap. You (I think) are speculating on the economic cost of a long lockdown without any numbers or it seems much consideration of what a “long virus” costs.
Your graph of Sweden is exactly what I expected. The nation that did a half lockdown has hurt their economy but still has too much virus to lift the half lockdown and isn’t welcome to join travel zones either. I said it would be a terrible solution, and so it is.
01
Memorial Day Lake of the Ozarks crowd reportedly led to no new COVID-19 cases –
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/memorial-day-lake-of-the-ozarks-crowd-reportedly-led-to-no-new-covid-19-cases
11
That’s because lockdowns are political sabotage/strategy, not necessity, people (some supposedly intelligent) and politicians have been duped, played like a fiddle into causing an economic and societal break point, which the UN global governance/climate change brigade hope to exploit for a massive push forward of their agenda. It’s not as if this strategy has not been openly theorized.
Political – not necessity? Another example:
Original UK Brighton council position.
“People who do not live in Brighton should ‘stay away’ from the city despite the easing of some lockdown restrictions, its council boss has said.”
New Brighton council position.
“Cllr Appich also spoke of the Black Lives Matter protests planned in Brighton tomorrow, saying the council supported the demonstration and called for it to be ‘peaceful and safe’.”
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/18517173.brighton-black-lives-matter-protest-picture-gallery/
If our lockdown is working, that gathering (repeated all over the country) should cause a massive spike – of course it won’t.
30
The book ” The politically incorrect guide to science” authored by Tom Bethell devotes a full chapter to hormesis and the effect of low doses of radiation. Very interesting.
50
Make sure no one tells POTUS about this. Because if he mentions a trial, the blue states (representing about 75% of cuomovirus cases) will ban it.
82
‘Cuomovirus’ – I love it! +97% sir!
Then there’s Bozovirus (UK), Crockovirus (AUS), and representing our South Pacific isles, ComradeCinderVirus (NZ) – or should that be Xivirus?
OK, I’ve got work to do, must be on my way…
62
get this to NZ too. the fat cats are on the move.
5-4-20 nations and global philanthropies meeting in Brussels committed $7.4 billion to pandemic preparedness
https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/06/5-4-20-nations-and-global.html
00
This might be of some background interest…. https://www.usnuclearenergy.org/PDF-Documents/Rockwell-Nuclear-Energy-Facts-Report-2010.pdf
30
Interesting: had a quick flick through.
20
Peter Fitzroy,
“spun”, Peter? “killed”, Peter?
That wouldn’t be the totally unnecessary use of emotive language, would it?
It does seem from the content of the report that the patients concerned were in a far from normal, healthy state, for whom a simple alternative procedure was available. Or am I missing something?
As to your claim that the treatment is unethical: you would also claim then, for example, the breast cancer treatments commonly in use are unethical, where, as “Peter C” reports above, significantly higher doses to target tissue are used?
My dentist can and does tell me what the dose from his X-ray machine is. Perhaps he is unusual?
And Peter, just to add to those precautions mentioned helpfully for you by “Kalm Keith” above, regarding that concern of yours that radiation dose is cumulative, do remember that every time you eat a banana.
Bananas are high in Potassium-40, a naturally-occurring radioactive isotope which provides a not-inconsequential dose of gamma radiation to the consumer.
Perhaps you should be careful to keep a record of the number of bananas you consume?
Oh, don’t forget that little task that I gave you as item #37 at: http://joannenova.com.au/2020/06/desperate-signs-australian-companies-will-be-paid-to-use-less-electricity/ .
You have until Friday 19th June next to provide a rebuttal to the arguments in Prof. Kelly’s recent papers.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
70
Paul.
I used to wonder when entering towns like Broken Hill which advertised themselves as “nuclear free zones” as to how they got their dietary essential potassium
40
Is this effect why smokers and ex-smokers were initially reported to have lower infection rates of this virus because they already have some lung damage and that prevents the cytokine storm?
23
It would be interesting to know the reason for that effect.
12
Perhaps it could be due to the elevated levels of radiation in their lungs from smoking. Google ‘polonium in cigarette smoke’
01
Fauci will be onto this quick smart deriding it as dangerous or whatever.
No money for drug companies so has to be stopped.
40
I am just surprised to discover that Cohort is a technical term in statistics and medical research.
Previously I only related the term to post Marian Reform Romans.
There you go.
30
Dr John Campbell produced a particularly insightful review presentation today — an overview of what’s going on with the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Episode here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_a8HyXnFU4
He’s right on the money too as the data trends show the poorer parts of the world are finally beginning to take over in the global stats. It took a long time to get rolling due to the much lower level of travel linkages and the quarantine and isolation, but COVID-19 is finally up and running in large numbers in poorer countries just like it was in early March in the Western world.
However it’s still expanding, much more slowly than it did in the travel-addicted West, due to the major efforts still being made to slow it down. For instance, on the last day of April, the then trend for Indonesia was to reach 100,000 total cases some time in the last week of May. But six weeks after that the total known cases in Indonesia are still only at 36,406. And about 1,100 new cases recently. They’ve been very successful so far at slowing it down for months to a manageable level (more successful than most), making time to prepare and reorganize the society’s practices. It’s not out of the question for Indonesia to defeat the virus without getting to 100,000 cases. There are thousands of Islands so they could achieve low infection rates in most of their population over the next 2 years.
– Dr. John Campbell
In reference to retired medical people being recalled to voluntarily treat COVID-19 patients, then die themselves, while helping scores of others to survive and recover, for potentially 1 to 2 decades more life.
Actual sacrifice, for the sake of others, something which there used to be a lot more of about.
But the major problem I see is within the Western world, especially the United States, where within the poorer segment of the US population such self-discipline and sense of responsibility for others is harder to find (at least perceptually, if not actually). John Campbell thinks this disease is already showing signs of rapidly rising within many US States. I’m not so sure of that, but I do expect that to happen in July. I switched on TV this morning and the first thing which came on was some inane culturally plastic and ‘throw-away’ college grid-iron game 120 mins of TV refuse, with a massive cheering crowd in very close proximity, yelling at the top of their lungs, within a largely enclosed stadium. Awesome. There were ~20,000 community-spreading new-cases in the USA Sunday data, and over ~28,000 on Friday.
So many people who did not even attend or watch that TV sporting shishnozzle will eventually pay a heavy toll for such stunning selfishness, undisciplined pleasure-seeking, and basic ingrained dumbness. How many thousands will die so that some college team could play that game today?
I hope the organizers and advertisers made a killing from it.
For Australia we’re going to have to very quickly adapt to operating in a world with a much weaker and less influential USA in a geopolitical environment where the USA’s credibility as “leader of the free-world“, has completely evaporated.
Donald Trump may want the USA to be “great” again, we may agree with him, both in his rhetoric and policy directions, but the USA’s people are unfortunately exhibiting the classical Biblical, “stiff-necked and rebellious people“, with “hardened hearts“, etc. Which is intent on pursuing profound national failure, whenever the opportunity presents itself. Those classic Biblical narratives usually turned out pretty badly for the protagonists. ‘Greatness’, and “a stiff-necked and rebellious people“, tends to resolve itself with a merciless level of dispatch. COVID-19 and USA’s many existing cultural ‘comorbidities’ will take the USA down from the ‘Eagle’s perch’, very hard indeed. Not post-Soviet era hard but hard enough to change the way the world operates.
For Australia, we’ll struggle now to try not to go down as well, while the USA takes a decade to figure out how, when and why they began acting so unbelievably stupidly, during a known deadly global pandemic, which is about to unravel all prior arrangements and send many marginal States into a varied spectrum of ‘fail-state’ status, with economic collapse, warfare, plagues, famine, pestilence, etc. More than we’ve seen since the 1970s ended.
I’m generally hopeful, but realistic most of the time, but the ‘classical’ hard-times issues are all on the global doorstep for the next decade. So let’s hope weather does not toss in 3 or 4 decades of global cooling with lowering humidity levels and renewed 1970s ‘desertification’ as this all plays out. One thing I’ve realized over the years is excess of badness always generates excess goodness, in its wake. Actual ‘doom’ never arrives as the doomers advertise. So in the wash-up this process will produce net positives — regardless. That’s what we (eventually) always do. There’s nothing to hand-wring about, as the lessons needed to be learned will be learned (again), and we’ll move on with a re-organized global civilization, from there.
That’s what we do — eventually.
Watch this John Campbell video if you have ~39 minutes, he’s nailing it. It’s a real pity the UK govt didn’t listen to him but a lot of front line medical people are taking cues from his sobering analysis and preparing. Those who said the COVID-19 deaths never came, it was all a hoax, and the projection warnings are all hype simply didn’t grasp that there was a timescale involved which was not the proscribed political 2-3 month period talked about in March in the USA. The 2 to 3 months political and media imposed schedule is now over and the global cases grew by another 6.5 million cases, and continued to expand quickly. And now it’s accelerating once again in the developing world, just as that ignorant political scheduling made it defacto ‘OK’ to go play ball games in packed stadiums once again.
63
Thanks WX for that. I l try to watch his videos but they are time consuming which is a disincentive.
13
Yeah, I agree Bill, I check the gist before downloading them but then just listen to them as I’m doing other stuff, so just re-watch his more interesting remarks. It’s dry and slow presentation style but in this case he’s reviewing some key points about what’s to come (two orders bigger of magnitude larger than we’ve seen to date).
32
It would be nice if Australia could stop being a US puppet state.
17
The US alliance will continue, the US may lose status but the alliance and its intent is critical to both country’s mutual security, and diplomatic bargaining positions. We make each other stronger. We’re not a ‘puppet’, we freely chose to go this route as we have our own foreign policy and the .gov and the .mil see that Australia is many times weaker and highly vulnerable to actual coercion and ‘puppetry’, without a very close alliance with the US.
Japan, is in a much better position militarily to fend for themselves, but explicitly chose to integrate all the more with the US pacific policy and military, since Trump took power. Why? Because Japan will be very much stronger and have more clout for as long as it remains in a very close strategic alliance with Washington, as all its close neighbors are wary of Japan’s history.
Same and much more applies to Australia, so I don’t see Canberra even considering letting go of that Alliance any time soon. But the US’s wishes will not be respected or taken seriously if it’s wayward .govs don’t clean up their acts. There will certainly be a lot more criticism of some aspects of the US’s approaches. However the problem is not so much with the US .mil and Executive branch anyway, it more a problem of too many cooks spoil the broth and political freaks vandalizing the system to demoralize and create dysfunction.
It would take a heck of a lot of serious missteps by the US mil and US president for the alliance to be de-emphasized and an independent policy approach given priority. Maybe in 2050 that could happen.
22
Australia is not a puppet state.
Cooperating for mutual benefit is the foundation of civilisation. You have to be terminally insecure to not form alliances in your own interest, merely to demonstrate “independence”.
50
We could join the non-aligned movement.
https://www.worlddata.info/alliances/non-aligned-movement.php
02
WOW, that’s a lot of countries aligned on being non-aligned. ! 😉
21
Does that actually align them?
10
I’ve watched dozens of John Campbell’s episodes and while I respect the man very much, it’s evident to me that he struggles with mathematics and at times displays undertones of racism and pompous intellectualism. One example was Russia, their low death rate and accusing them of lying because their data was inconsistent with Italy/Spanish/UK trends. I took exception to that, read comments on his YouTube channel and sure enough, a couple of people pointed out that Russia’s life expectancy is much lower, have more favourable age demographics, that the elderly aren’t grouped together in homes but live independently alone even from their families.
The UK is proof that an advanced health system won’t save you from utter incompetence, killing 62,000 of your predominantly elderly citizens. Extrapolating that level of stupidity to the rest of the world is doubtful to say the least. Because these countries are poor won’t mean they can’t do a much better job than the UK, especially with the increasing knowledge we have of the virus. Age demographics, higher Vitamin D levels, and more caring cultures may save them from Dr Campbell’s dire predictions. The UK in time may even learn from them.
72
“Though it’s only equivalent to 15 years of living in Ramsar, Iran, and 8 years on a Brazilian Monazite beach.”
Or a weekend in Maralinga?
12
Tony Heller makes a salient point
21
But two people who were at the protests in Melbourne are now known to be infected.
Just what Victoria needs -NOT
24
REPORT: Over 95% of UK “Covid19” deaths had “pre-existing condition”
Latest statistics show vast majority of fatalities had at least one other disease
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/09/report-over-95-of-uk-covid19-deaths-had-pre-existing-condition/
11
Half the population has a pre-existing condition.
100 million have high blood pressure.
35 million have diabetes.
40% of adults are obese.
25 million Americans have asthma.
31
Have you read Judy Mikovits book it’s a best seller on Amazon.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/5rWXGt3Gtasc/
20
A new study has found that Sars-Cov-2, the virus linked to Covid19, maybe five times more widespread than previously thought, and therefore five times less deadly.
A preliminary results of a study by Pr Didier Raoult reveals similar results, 40% to 70% of the french are already immune.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/12/study-80-of-people-naturally-resistant-to-coronavirus/
31
Italy, Germany, France & Netherlands sign deal for up to 400 million Oxford Covid-19 vaccines – Italian health minister
https://www.rt.com/news/491724-europe-400-million-vaccine/
Coronavirus: Oxford vaccine fails animal trials
He said in an article in Forbes magazine published on Monday that the Oxford vaccine data raises questions as to why the vaccine trial was still continuing with human trials.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/coronavirus-oxford-vaccine-fails-animal-trials/news-story/506deb721e8ab1c151ec8a6b596b5ef6
30
At a bit lower frequency in the same spectrum, ultraviolet blood radiation which was practiced in the US from the late 1920’s to 1940’s, seems to have been very effective. It used an external bypass requiring only a small percentage of the total blood volume to be treated, with a similar (also forgotten) history. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122858/
Trump’s speculation about “shining a light inside the body” (AKA intravascular laser blood irradiation) is now possible via an insertable fiber optic catheter.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_irradiation_therapy#:~:text=Blood%20irradiation%20therapy%20can%20be,(UVBI)%20by%20UV%20lamps.
Non-pharmaceutical treatments would seem to have advantages of broad spectrum effectiveness with less danger of producing resistant variants.
40
The BBC is trumpeting another ‘old’ safe drug for Covid 19 disease:
‘Dexamethasone is first life-saving coronavirus drug’
Apparently it doe snot help people sick with mild symptoms but significantly reduces the death rate and symptoms of those who are severely ill
“”There is a clear, clear benefit. The treatment is up to 10 days of dexamethasone and it costs about £5 per patient. So essentially it costs £35 to save a life. This is a drug that is globally available.”
Prof Landray said, when appropriate, hospital patients should now be given it without delay, but people should not go out and buy it to take at home.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53061281
This may be the drug we have been waiting for.
00
Thank you so much SMJ, sorry this was stuck in moderation so long.
Really appreciate you putting up a paper and link on this!
00