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Pandemic Could Be Solved Quickly If Politics Thrown Out: Dr. Ben Carson
“We’ve been having tunnel vision” dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Ben Carson told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.
“Let’s throw the politics out. We could solve this problem pretty quickly,” he stated in an interview that will premiere on Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. New York time.
“Let’s open this thing up to all the different mechanisms,” said Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian award in the nation—in 2008 for his work. He retired in 2013 and ran for the presidency in 2016, before serving as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Trump administration.
“Let’s look around the world at things that work. Let’s look at the fact that on the western coast of Africa, there’s almost no COVID. And let’s ask ourselves, why is that? And then you see, it’s because they take antimalarials, particularly hydroxychloroquine. Let’s study that. Let’s see what’s going on there.
“Let’s listen to these physician groups who’ve had incredible success with ivermectin. Let’s look at the results with monoclonal antibodies. Let’s look at all of these things. Let’s put them all in our armamentarium so that we don’t have a one-size-fits-all system.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at one time had authorized hydroxychloroquine for treating certain COVID-19 patients but quickly revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) in June 2020, claiming no data showed its effectiveness.
The FDA hasn’t approved or issued an EUA for ivermectin to treat COVID-19, citing the same reasons.
Using hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients has been highly controversial. Some studies show, and some doctors claim, that hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin can effectively treat COVID-19 patients. A vaccine confidence insight report (pdf) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled such claims as misinformation or disinformation.
“COVID is a virus. Viruses mutate. That’s what they do. And they will continue to mutate,” Carson said.
Carson pointed out that fortunately, most of the time, viruses become a little weaker with each mutation.
“We can admit that and deal with it, or we can take every little mutation and every little change and try to make it into a crisis so we can frighten people and control their lives more,” Carson said.
The latest variant has been named Omicron. During a White House COVID-19 Task Force briefing on Dec. 15, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that she expected Omicron cases to increase in the coming weeks, urging people to take preventive measures such as being vaccinated and getting booster doses.
Carson said he has some concerns with how COVID-19 is being utilized to “manipulate and frighten people.”
“We should be using every tool available to us to fight the pandemic. There’s no question about that,” Carson said.
“But that means, you know, therapeutics, which had been poo-pooed. And I understand why. Because in order to get an EUA—an emergency use authorization—to pursue the vaccines, you can’t have anything that’s effective as an alternative. So, that’s a defect in our system, we need to get rid of that.
“I think a lot of people died unnecessarily because we had that attitude,” Carson added. He shared that when he contracted the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus and was severely ill, monoclonal antibodies saved his life. He said monoclonal antibodies weren’t really utilized the way they should have been early on.
The FDA issued its first EUA for monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19 patients in November 2020.
“There are many things that have been very effective that we have not pursued, including natural immunity,” Carson said.
“Well, why wouldn’t you collect that information? Why wouldn’t you want to know that? The only reason you wouldn’t do that is because you didn’t want to know the answer,” he said. “Because it didn’t fit very neatly into what you’re trying to do, which is get everybody to be vaccinated.”
That’s one of the reasons people are losing confidence in federal health agencies, he suggested.
Last month, the CDC said it had no record of naturally immune people transmitting the CCP virus.
“A lot of people who probably should be vaccinated are not doing it because they see these inconsistencies, these things that make absolutely no sense,” Carson said. “This demand that everybody get a vaccination, except if you’re coming across the southern border illegally, then it’s not all that important.”
Carson also opposes forcing children to be vaccinated.
“We have a situation where you have the government advocating that children be vaccinated, even though the risk for death for a child with COVID is 0.025 percent, essentially the same as it is for seasonal flu. You don’t see us doing all this every year for seasonal flu,” Carson stated.
“The risk of mortality for a healthy child is approaching zero, and yet we’re saying do this without knowing what the long-term risks are?” he said.
“And why would you subject an innocent child to a lifetime of unknown risk? It just makes absolutely no sense.
“We need to have faith in our government. We need to have faith in our health care systems. And by injecting politics into it, I think we have put ourselves behind the eight ball. It’s going to take a while to reestablish that trust,” he said.
“Why not learn how to look at what’s logical and what makes sense? And why not encourage discussion of those things, rather than everybody getting their respective corners and shooting hand grenades at each other?”
The way out is real leadership, he said.
“The only path is strong leadership. We don’t have that.”
I'll say what Dr. Carson shied away from saying: There's money to be made with the vax, and mandatory vaxxes. I mean, he said as much, but he wasn't blunt enough. The half million dead Americans blamed on Trump, are more properly blamed on Fauci and associates.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 19 2021, @05:40PM (42 children)
First, the mortality rate isn't "almost analogous", but more like an order of magnitude worse. Second, the "effective treatments" aren't that effective and/or prohibited. Third, the gene serum is effective, contrary to assertion. Finally, the real problem here is that this is a bad approach to dealing with emergencies, real or manufactured. Really, if you want the good guys to win, you need to present a better approach to such emergencies than willful disruption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @05:43PM (2 children)
That's the problem with government/religion.
Sinners, all.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 20 2021, @04:39PM (1 child)
You only think it a problem if you ignore that redemption is free for the asking.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @05:57PM
Redemption, like freedom, is not free.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 19 2021, @05:50PM (38 children)
I've asked in discussions before this: Why haven't the poorest countries in Africa just all dropped dead due to COVID? Poor health in general, no vax, crowded cities - but anti-malarial drugs are in wide use. But, anti-malarials have been pooh-poohed by all the best brains that Wall Street can hire. The empirical data says that COVID doesn't like anti-malarials for some reason. But, again, those best brains simply ignore empirical data that wasn't paid for by Wall Street.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 19 2021, @06:12PM (2 children)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 19 2021, @06:28PM (1 child)
Ahhhh, yes. I remember someone countering my question the first time with, "Well, dey's jus darkies, and dey can't even count!" But, if that were true, we might expect that ebola should have killed off all the darkies by now.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @11:27PM
I'm sorry but we won't bother to engage with the imaginary voices in your head. If, on the other hand, you want to engage with what the rest of us are actually saying, we might be willing to reciprocate.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dalek on Sunday December 19 2021, @06:32PM (6 children)
The population of most African countries is generally much younger than in Europe, the US, and Canada. We know that younger people are much less likely to get seriously ill from COVID. One theory proposed in South Africa is that Omicron really isn't any less deadly than previous variants, just that people aren't especially likely to become seriously ill after getting COVID or getting vaccinated, and there aren't many people in South Africa without any exposure to the spike protein. On the other hand, there is likely still a significant portion of the population in Europe, the US, and Canada that have neither been infected nor vaccinated. The result is that there are far more people susceptible to serious coronavirus disease in those regions than in most of Africa. The initial waves were less deadly because the population in Africa is generally young, and now there's a significant amount of immunity built up in nearly the entire population.
Now, I agree with Carson's statement that the pandemic should be mostly over in the US were it not for politics. The problem is that it's his side prolonging the pandemic. For a lot of right wingers, not wearing a mask and not getting vaccinated seem to be two forms of political virtue signaling, showing one's support for Donald Trump to other right wingers. If everyone who could safely be vaccinated did so, we almost certainly wouldn't have nearly as many people hospitalized or critically ill with COVID. Omicron is transmissible enough and there enough people without immunity in places like Europe, the US, and Canada that we unfortunately might see a bigger wave of hospitalizations and critically ill patients than even last winter. If that happens, it would almost certainly be a very quick surge, but a potentially devastating one. Carson is right that this never needed to happen. But he's part of the problem by spreading misinformation.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest just whinge about SN.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @07:06PM (4 children)
So if younger people are less likely to be affected by the coof, why is *your* side forcing injections on kids?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @03:49AM (3 children)
Because you're an idiot. You can bank that answer and apply it to just about every question you ask.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @06:00PM (2 children)
And there's today... what passes for intellectual debate. We can't have nice things, anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @07:47PM (1 child)
Be best fren.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @07:53PM
With frens like that...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @07:07PM
That's one theory, the other (with increasingly supportive evidence) is that Omicron rarely causes lower-respiratory disease. It's a cold. [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday December 19 2021, @08:18PM (2 children)
Because dropping dead from COVID-19 isn't the worst thing [cdc.gov] that can happen to you. If a virus kills people *too* quickly, it won't get a chance to spread. It's best for its long-term viability if it can spread/incubate asymptomatically for as long as possible before (if ever) showing any symptoms. If the symptoms can't be correlated to the infection to the virus, even better for its long-term success.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @01:39PM
That is why Omicron evolved to be a natural vaccine. Everyone will who gets mild illness then be protected against future variants. This is how the pandemic could end.
Now, that isn't to say you should stop wearing a mask and getting vaccinated to prevent omicron infection. Infection is still leading to overrun hospitals and mass death.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @04:55PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome [wikipedia.org]
Blaming this on COVID as if it were in some way specific to it, is maybe a useful lie to scare the unwashed masses, but nevertheless, using it makes you a liar.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @02:58PM (22 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 20 2021, @03:38PM (21 children)
Citations needed. Screw it, I found my own - https://www.news-medical.net/news/20211208/COVID-19-disruptions-linked-to-increase-in-malaria-cases-and-deaths.aspx [news-medical.net]
Your claim doesn't stand. Even if distribution of anti-malarials are being disrupted, the disruption probably isn't uniform across all of malaria country. Even if you assume distribution is uniform, you've not demonstrated that the meds are ineffective against COVID.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/06/11/why-has-africa-suffered-fewer-covid-19-deaths-than-predicted/ [northeastern.edu]
Fact 1: Africa has the heaviest burden of malaria, in the world.
Fact 2: Africa distributes more anti-malarials than any place on earth, disruptions or not.
Fact 3: Africa has a surprisingly low infection rate as well as death rate from COVID.
Fact 4: Those correlations should be thoroughly investigated.
Do you have a problem with investigating correlations? If so, don't make any claims of being a scientist, or an engineer, doctor, or any other kind of STEM person. That's what science, engineering, and medical people do, they investigate correlations - among other things.
Read the article, they offer some ideas about that correlation. Among other things, they aren't counting every death as a COVID death. People in Africa are still dying of other diseases, and unrelated causes. That is, if a guy is killed by a lion, his corpse isn't swabbed, then attributed to COVID.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @12:18AM (19 children)
There goes runaway bring stupid. Opinions are not facts buddy, no matter how many times you pretend otherwise.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 21 2021, @01:06AM (18 children)
And there you go, being stupider than stupid. I have not stated any OPINION as a fact here. My OPINION is that people who claim that anti-malarials affect COVID are probably on to something. I have a very strong OPINION that the correlations that have been noted should be investigated. But, once again, those people who are invested in the vax narrative, and especially those people who are financially invested in the vax, want to shoot down such research. Soon, you'll be shooting down the idea of taking simple vitamins and minerals and other dietary supplements that tend to boost your immune system. Gotta rely on the vax, and trash everything else, right?
If something, almost anything, shows promise in combatting the disease, we should be researching it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 21 2021, @08:16PM (17 children)
Runaway brings the stupid, opinion. One he shares with Ben Carson, who used to shill for Mannatech [esquire.com], hawking faux cancer cures. Yes, Runaway has his own (rather stupid) opinions, and he does his own "research", and if only people would listen to him, more could be dead of the pandemic.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 21 2021, @08:52PM (16 children)
Oh, how are you, ari? You've been so quiet, I was concerned that I may have caused you to have an apoplectic fit. You know, at your age, you probably should cut back on all the excitement in your life. I'm sure that signing in to SN to snipe at me puts a strain on your fragile system. Have you taken your meds today?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 21 2021, @09:23PM (15 children)
You poor, ignorant moron, Runaway! You left out the Oleander! And the colloidal silver! Not to mention the Chlorine dioxide that has become a communal drink for QAnon. So many "alternative" medicines to be independently researched, when you are an idiot! Zerohedge? What happened to your usual source, the Gateway Pundit? And "TheTruthAboutBums"? Not to mention Project Veritas and Touring Point USA? Grifters gonna grift!
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 21 2021, @10:07PM (14 children)
You should ask the nice nurse for a sedative, you're foaming at the mouth again.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 22 2021, @10:30AM (13 children)
And you, my ignorant moron, could stop killing people with your spreading of misinformation about COVID-19. Karma is a bitch, man!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 22 2021, @03:43PM
I'm feeling fine. You, however, sound like you could use some... one-on-one counseling. Wear a bib.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 22 2021, @05:52PM (11 children)
Name one person who has died because they followed my advice. You just hate me so much that you want to attribute the whole pandemic to me. Do you ever listen to yourself?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 22 2021, @09:09PM (10 children)
You are a tool, Runaway, a useful idiot! You parrot talking points from your Ruskie masters, not even aware of the consequences of what you are doing. Ben Carson was a surgeon, good at separating the brains of conjoined twins, but then he went off the deep end, as so many African-American Republicans do. Just a short list: Allen West, E.W. Jackson, Larry Elder, Candace Qwens, Alan Keyes, Kanye West. Carson did not serve in a medical capacity under Trump. And his association with snake oil means that he, along with crazed Republican Runaway1956, is complicit in the deaths of 800,000 Americans.
I await the Dr. Seuss "Hate Runaway in a box" poster. But I only feel pity for your ignorance, and mental dysfunction.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 22 2021, @09:20PM
Nope. Tools and useful idiots almost always promote Marxism, in one form or another. The few leftover tools work for petty dictators in third world countries. Or, for the DNC in Washington.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 22 2021, @09:23PM (8 children)
I can't let that pass, you racist sumbitch. So long as dem darkies think in ways you want them to think, then they's "good darkies". As soon as they start thinking for themselves, they've gone "off the deep end" and should probably be put down, right? We wouldn't want the contagion to spread through the herd, would we?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 22 2021, @09:39PM (7 children)
Triggered much, you white trash racist scum? You know that black republicans that support Trump, like Diamond and Silk, are certifiably insane, a danger to themselves and others, much like yourself, ignorant moron! Maybe you should do another Murder Death Kill journal.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 22 2021, @10:17PM (6 children)
Physician, heal thyself.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday December 23 2021, @03:32AM (5 children)
Are you confusing me with Hippocrates? (Interesting trivia, "hippo" is Greek for "horse", and "Kratos" is "power", so Hippocrates means "horsepower"! Can't get full power out of your horse, if it is infested with worms.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 23 2021, @04:17AM (3 children)
No, dummy, I'm not confusing you with anyone. Put "Physician, heal thyself" into any search engine. Ignant moran.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 23 2021, @04:25AM
Well, to be fair, there's a lot of room for confusion to be seen between the dumber side of Alec Baldwin, and that kid. Not that there's a smarter side. Seekin' attention and shootin' from the hip.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday December 23 2021, @06:51AM (1 child)
No, you are just confused, Runaway! Happens a lot when you are not very well educated, and prey to so many right-wing propaganda machines! Try this:
The correct spelling is "ignorant moron". Try to get it right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 23 2021, @08:45PM
And a-shootin' blanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 23 2021, @04:20AM
The kid's a-settin' G**gl* afire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2021, @04:49PM
Fact 5: Correlation is not Causation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @03:06PM (1 child)
Also:
Fact is, there are more possibilities than just one. Which one is it? We don't know. Reality is it is probably a contribution from all of these reasons that combined together add up to their better outcomes, and to repeat the same elsewhere would require duplicating all the various conditions that contribute, not just one of them.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @11:54PM
South Africa is mostly subtropical, including lots of highlands. The southern coast is pretty much the first land since Antarctica. In high summer, sure, it's nice and toasty. In winter? Hope you have warm clothing. Some areas actually get semi-regular snow.
But thanks for playing.