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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, @07:41PM (23 children)
Every one of them.
How would you notice? I'll note that just with covid, the original strain has already been mostly displaced by the delta variant.
Point is that we aren't all continually sick from a cold. Means that it dies off for some reason. I bet herd immunity is that reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @08:02PM (3 children)
We are sick often enough that we carry antibodies. [nih.gov] Just don't mention all-cause mortality for ICU patients with common coronavirus infections. [nature.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 19 2021, @09:17PM (2 children)
Like I do with measles, which I've never caught?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @04:28AM (1 child)
Were you vaccinated? This branch of paramyxoviridae can have fatality rates towards 100%. If you're not vaccinated and you catch it, you are (statistically) dead. The herd immunity rate is over 90% vaccinated.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 21 2021, @05:49AM
Yes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @09:16PM
You can read the paper and become informed or not and keep being surprised by lack of herd immunity.
(Score: 1) by dalek on Sunday December 19 2021, @09:31PM (12 children)
I think what Runaway is getting at is that it's extremely unlikely that we can eradicate SARS-CoV-2 from circulating in humans. There are four other commonly circulating coronaviruses, all of which cause common colds. My understanding is that the most recent of those started infecting humans during the late 19th century. One theory is that the Russian Flu pandemic that began in 1889 was actually caused by the OC43 coronavirus. There were waves of infections for a few years and the symptoms were quite similar to COVID. Within a few years, the waves of infection diminished, but a portion of the population had lasting impacts from being infected. If that was the result of OC43, the waves of infection were quite possibly the result of new variants developing while humans and the virus were adapting to coexist. Even so, new strains of OC43 have emerged in recent decades but haven't caused more severe disease.
It seems unlikely that we'll be able to stop SARS-CoV-2 from circulating in the population. However, we can get to a point where enough people have sufficient immunity that the virus no longer causes massive waves of infection that can push hospitals to their capacity and beyond. Even if we could eradicate SARS-CoV-2 from the human population, there are other reservoirs of the virus such as felines. Once our immunity waned, it's very possible that SARS-CoV-2 could spread from one of the animal reservoirs back into humans. That said, vaccines certainly do increase the proportion of the human population that has some immunity and is unlikely to experience severe disease from being infected. It's not herd immunity, because the virus would still circulate. However, it would end the pandemic.
Even if we could eradicate SARS-CoV-2, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to do so. There are plenty of other coronaviruses circulating in other animals that could very well mutate to where they can and do infect humans. If that happened and the virus could spread well enough from person to person, we'd end up with another pandemic. I propose that our efforts would be better spent preparing for future pandemics instead of actually eradicating SARS-CoV-2.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest just whinge about SN.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 20 2021, @05:48AM (11 children)
How would you propose preparing for a future epidemic? How would you know those preparations would work? I don't consider it the most important part of covid efforts, but it does prepare us for worse things in ways that hypothetical preparation can't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @04:42PM (10 children)
Prepare? Buy American products. Quit funding your enemy.
Encourage independent thought, hard work, family, compassion, simplicity, humility, conservation...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday December 20 2021, @06:22PM (9 children)
What enemy? Why should I buy "American" products when there are other products out there, just as good or better (in terms of my desired combination of quality, price, etc). For example, I haven't bought a US car in 40 years. They still don't meet my standards for quality and ease of repair.
Indeed. But that exists outside of the US too. And what's missed with this bit of jingoism is that there are almost 8 billion people who need that too. And they can get it by global trade, particularly with the US. The list of countries that has been so helped is huge. For example, Europe wasn't developed world in 1945. It was a huge battlezone with lots of broken pieces. Same for Japan and South Korea. Taiwan came a little later as the remnants of the Kuomintang gradually became a kind democracy. Then came the Eastern Bloc and parts of the former USSR. Now, we're seeing movement to more humane governments in China, Southeast Asia, and South America.
How much suffering are you willing to inflict worldwide for your selfish piece of cheese?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 20 2021, @07:48PM (8 children)
You know, I got that far, and then skipped down to the cheese (Moe... Larry).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 20 2021, @11:48PM (7 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @02:18AM (4 children)
Yours was untenable, from the git-go.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 21 2021, @06:35AM (3 children)
This should be a wake up call to us, rather than a time to flee to isolationism. The countries that will fare best in the near future will be the ones that do globalism most effectively. Not the ones that surrender by pulling out of the global economy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @03:39PM (2 children)
Ahem... CCP. Get it?!?!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 21 2021, @04:34PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @05:03PM
Merry Winter Solstice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @10:03PM (1 child)
'Tis the season for a Winter Solstice celebration, so I'll charitably expand on what's obvious to almost everyone else. The question was about preparing for epidemics. I answered. Then you changed the subject into isolationism, apparently looking for a fight. I'm not interested in chasing your goalposts.
I thought my original point was well made, though I suppose the elapses did give you the opportunity to send it into the weeds.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 22 2021, @01:57AM
Indeed. Because that was a ridiculous answer that had nothing to do with preparing for epidemics. Who wouldn't spoil for a fight under those circumstances?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @05:02PM (4 children)
WTF you are saying?
" The human coronaviruses HCoV-OC43, HCoV-HKU1, HCoV-229E, and HCoV-NL63 continually circulate in the human population in adults and children worldwide and produce the generally mild symptoms of the common cold.[87] The four mild coronaviruses have a seasonal incidence occurring in the winter months in temperate climates.[95][96] There is no preponderance in any season in tropical climates.[97]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Common_cold [wikipedia.org]
Get informed, or just stop lying. Either way will be better.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 21 2021, @05:48PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @06:03PM
100% correct and it's worth pointing out for the mid-wits in the mod-squad that current data shows Omicron is a primarily mucosal infection, hence, neutralizing anti-bodies will not prevent it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2021, @08:52PM (1 child)
What part of "There is no preponderance in any season in tropical climates" is too complicated for you to understand?
Mistaking the effect of changing weather conditions for "herd immunity" is understandable, but NOT when you have a counterexample pointed out to you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 22 2021, @02:05AM
Should I note that didn't happen [soylentnews.org]?
Really, if we're going to make up stories here, I think it reasonable that we add something about my Fortune 500 backhoe business. And garage of fighter jets from the 20th Century.