A PCR test cannot be used to diagnose anything

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi: Now anyone who has studied infectious diseases knows that a PCR test cannot be used to diagnose anything. A PCR test is a lab test that may be used to support a diagnosis. So if you think someone is ill, has fever, is coughing, and short of breath then it's quite legitimate to do a PCR test to try to find the gene of that virus that you are looking for and if you find it -- or parts of the gene because a PCR test only looks at part of the virus genome, very small parts -- then it's OK,  then you say alright, this would confirm the clinical diagnosis. But a real doctor doesn't go around testing people with a test that has never been put on the market for use to diagnose a disease. It's only there to see whether you have parts of this virus genome sitting around in your throat or nose. And then the terrible thing was that whenever this PCR test was positive that person or patient was labelled COVID-19 case....A positive PCR does not mean that you are infected. (starts at 6:00)

Interviewer: So to put it in very simple language for people  listening, what you are really saying is the the PCR test is likely to massively exaggerate the number of people who are actually suffering symptoms of COVID 19." (starts at 12:25)

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi: Oh yes, horribly, I mean so much that it's criminal to say that these are COVID-19 cases. Because everyone in the world believes oh my God now we've had 250,000 COVID-19 cases in Germany, but in fact you probably have had I won't be able even to estimate, I can tell that probably we have had 10,000 COVID-19 deaths but of these 10,000 COVID-19 deaths 90% were death due to other causes, like heart attack or stroke or whatever, it's just that they happened to test positive for this damn virus with a PCR test that lights up the moment bits and pieces of this virus or another virus that is related to this virus has gotten into your throat."

Interviewer: So Dr. Bhakdi, if this is the case, right, and of course I trust what you are saying, then why is it that we are going into lock down. Because you can't be the only person to think this I'm sure there's great sweeps in the medical profession that do.

Dr. Bhakdi: Well, to our great relief, the world's foremost epidemiologist Professor John Ioannidis of Stanford actually published a paper that was back three weeks ago and this paper is peer reviewed which means it has been seen by 3 to 4 experts, leading experts in the field and the WHO put this paper on its bulletin which means the WHO accepts that this is the correct data, alright, and you go and read that paper because John Ioannidis said what we said months ago, that this virus is no more deadly than a seasonal flu and for people under 70 it is even less deadly than the seasonal flu. If you are under 70 your chances of dying with or because of this virus are less than 0.1%. Alright. In fact they are about 0.05%. This means 5 out of 10,000 infected people may die because of the virus. 5 out of 10,000. This is so little that there is no reason to do anything. Not only are the lock-downs nonsense, everything else is nonsense, everything. And this is published. Everyone who is watching now should stop and think for a moment. Anyone can look at this paper, anyone can look at the bulletin of the WHO and should and then they should come back and say, listen, since it is now internationally accepted that this virus is not the killer virus that one thought it was, and now since the pandemic has actually come to an end, the epidemic does not exist in Europe, it does not exist in America, the number of case and fatalities have almost gone down to zero. Anyone who says that anything is being done for any scientific reason is lying.

Interview on Triggernometry channel on youtube, Nov 17, 2020

Professor Bhakdi studied at the Universities of Bonn, Gießen, Mainz and Copenhagen, and at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg. He was professor of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and from 1991 to 2012 was head of the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene there.

Charedi infection rate is lower than the general population in Israel - Israel National News

All those irresponsible people who have lambasted Charedim for months, charging them with irresponsibly infecting the country can go eat their words.

According to a report by Public Broadcasting Corporation health correspondent Katie Dor, Edelstein asked senior officials in his Ministry to examine whether conclusions may be drawn that might be used by the Health Ministry in the fight against the virus in the general sector as well.

"There were prophecies of doom that within three weeks all the haredi communities would turn red," Dor said. "Not only did this not happen, but the opposite happened; the infection index in the haredi sector is lower than in the general sector."

According to her, in the general sector there is an infection factor of 1.06 percent, and among haredim the infection factor is 0.96 percent. "The index of serious patients is significantly lower," Dor adds, "far fewer serious patients in the haredi sector compared to the secular sector and the Arab sector where it is on the rise."

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New study: Lockdown has no significant impact on COVID mortality - Technology & Health - Israel National News

New study: Lockdown has no significant impact on COVID mortality

Study based on data from 160 countries, recommends "increasing population resilience with better physical fitness."

"A new study published last week in Frontiers, a peer-reviewed journal, has concluded that government measures designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus are not linked to reduced levels of mortality.

"The study was conducted by a number of scientists from French universities and biomedicine and epidemiological research institutes, and based on an analysis of data from 160 countries, accounting for a total of 846,395 deaths over the first eight months of 2020. The authors of the study collected data on: life expectancy and its change over time; public health context (metabolic and non-communicable diseases as well as infectious diseases); GDP and government financial support; and government measures designed to fight the pandemic."

Read: New study: Lockdown has no significant impact on COVID mortality - Technology & Health - Israel National News

Dr. Roger Hodkinson, MA, MB, FRCPC, FCAP, CEO "Masks are utterly useless."

Thank you very much. And I do appreciate the opportunity to address you on this very important matter. What I’m going to say is lay language, and blunt. It’s counter-narrative, and so you don’t immediately think I’m a quack, I’m going to briefly outline my credentials so that you can understand where I’m coming from in terms of knowledge base in all of this.

I’m a medical specialist in pathology which includes virology. I trained at Cambridge University in the U.K. I’m the ex-president of the pathology section of the Medical Association. I was previously an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine doing a lot of teaching. I was the chairman of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada Examination Committee and Pathology in Ottawa, but more to the point I’m currently the chairman of a biotechnology company in North Carolina selling the COVID-19 test.

And I might you might say I know a little bit about all of this. The bottom line is simply this: There is utterly unfounded public hysteria driven by the media and politicians. It’s outrageous. This is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done to contain this virus. Other than protecting older, more vulnerable people. It should be thought of as nothing more than a bad flu season.

This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS. It’s politics playing medicine and that’s a very dangerous game.

There is no action of any kind needed other than what happened last year when we felt unwell. We stayed home, we took chicken noodle soup, we didn’t visit granny, and we decided when we would return to work. We didn’t need anyone to tell us.

Masks are utterly useless. There is no evidence base for their effectiveness whatsoever. Paper masks and fabric masks are simply virtue-signaling. They’re not even worn effectively most of the time. It’s utterly ridiculous. Seeing these unfortunate, uneducated people — I’m not saying that in a pejorative sense — seeing these people walking around like lemmings, obeying without any knowledge base, to put the mask on their face.

Social distancing is also useless because COVID is spread by aerosols which travel 30 meters or so before landing. Enclosures have had such terrible unintended consequences. Everywhere should be opened tomorrow as was stated in the Great Barrington Declaration that I circulated prior to this meeting.

And a word on testing: I do want to emphasize that I’m in the business of testing for COVID. I do want to emphasize that positive test results do not – underlined in neon – mean a clinical infection. It’s simply driving public hysteria and all testing should stop. Unless you’re presenting to the hospital with some respiratory problem.

All that should be done is to protect the vulnerable and to give them all in the nursing homes that are under your control, give them all 3,000 to 5,000 international units of vitamin D every day which has been shown to radically reduce the likelihood of infection.

And I would remind you all that using the province’s own statistics, the risk of death under 65 in this province is one in 300,000. One in 300,000. You’ve got to get a grip on this.

The scale of the response that you are undertaking with no evidence for it is utterly ridiculous given the consequences of acting in a way that you’re proposing. All kinds of suicides, business closures – funerals, weddings, etc., etc. It’s simply outrageous! It’s just another bad flu and you’ve got to get your minds around that.

Let people make their own decisions. You should be totally out of the business of medicine. You’re being led down the garden path by the chief medical officer of health for this province.

I am absolutely outraged that this has reached this level. It should all stop tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

Full transcript of the comments made by Dr. Roger Hodkinson, MA, MB, FRCPC, FCAP, CEO and medical director of Western Medical Assessments. Dr. Hodkinson made these comments at a public city meeting in the Council Chambers of the City of Edmonton in Western Canada on November 13, 2020. [This was originally transcribed by Lifesite news.]

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MB is the British equivalent of the American MD degree.

FULL TRANSCRIPT: Doctor destroys ‘utterly unfounded public hysteria’ over COVID-19 | News | Lifesitenews

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US and British Medical Degrees Explained -www.squaremouth.com

Eliot C. Heher, MD

American Medical Degrees

First the basics. Most graduates of American medical schools receive the “M.D.” or Medical Doctor, degree. Of course graduates list the degree after their name, “Peter Rabbit, MD” and are referred to as doctors–“Dr. Rabbit”. The D.O., or Doctor of Osteopathy, is another medical degree that is awarded by 19 or so medical schools in the United States. Physicians with a D.O. degree are also referred to as doctors and are equally eligible with M.D.’s for medical licensure and practice (note that regardless of what degree a physician receives, he or she must receive and maintain a medical license from the State in which they practice, which requires extensive training after medical school).

The Ph.D. degree is a doctorate but is usually not associated with clinical practice or patient care. One very common exception is that of the Clinical Psychologist, who often have a Ph.D. or similar degree (unlike psychiatrists, who have an MD degree, Clinical Psychologists are typically not licensed to prescribe medications). Some physicians may possess both an MD and a Ph.D., though the Ph.D. is generally in an academic field involving research rather than patient care.

British Medical Degrees

In contrast, most graduates of British medical schools (and schools in countries with an historical connection to the UK, such as Australia and New Zealand), do not receive an “MD” degree but receive a degree in each of three major areas of medical study: medicine, surgery, and obstetrics. To receive a degree the graduate must pass the qualifying examination in that area. And because in many cases these physicians-in-training have gone directly from high school into a six year program that combines college and medical school, the degrees awarded are bachelors degrees.

The MB degree, which stands for bachelor of medicine, is awarded for passing the medicine exam examination, thereby qualifying as a medical doctor. This degree is really the equivalent to the MD in the United States–it’s the standard degree.

The BS, ChB and Bch degrees (which are are equivalent to one another) stand for Bachelor of Surgery (Ch=Chirurgie, which is latin for surgery). These degrees are awarded for passing the surgical portion of the exam.

BAO, which stands for Bachelor of Obstetrics, is awarded for passing the Obstetrics portion of the exam and thus qualifying in obstetrics.

Thus physician graduates of the British system posses the “MB, [BS, ChB, or Bch], BAO” degree. They may present themselves as “Peter Rabbit, MBChBBAO”, or “Peter Rabbit, MBBSBAO”. In practice, the BAO portion is often dropped for convenience: “Peter Rabbit, MBBS”.

To make things even more complicated, keep in mind that on occasion the “MD” degree is awarded by medical schools in the British system, in place of the MB. To receive an MD rather than an MB, students must complete a thesis and receive some additional training (e.g., research training) over and above what is required for the MB. Senior, academic physicians are more likely to have an MD; community physicians will typically have the MB degree.

Osteopathic physicians with a DO also exist outside the United States. And, just as in the U.S., regardless of what degree they receive physicians outside the United States must be licensed to practice, and licensure often requires extensive training after graduation from medical school.

Yerushoseinu

 We are very pleased to announce that the eleventh volume of Yerushoseinu, for the year ה'תשפ"א, is now available.

 

We will be happy to mail you a copy of this volume for a minimum donation of $ 36.00

 

Please mail your request for this book together with your donation to:

 

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Thanking you in advance for your support, and wishing you a good and healthy winter.

 

Rav Avigdor Miller on The Rambam and Aristotle

 Rav Avigdor Miller on The Rambam and Aristotle 

Q: 

You quoted from the Rambam that we should stay away from the gentiles and wicked people. But the Rambam himself was very much involved with gentiles, in particular with Aristotle. Why?

A:

I’ll explain it to you.  When you’re sitting now by that tape recorder recording this lecture, you’re taking something made maybe by goyim and thought up perhaps by goyim. You ride on buses driven by goyim. If you have a car, so the car and the gasoline are made and supplied by goyim. 

The answer is, whatever useful things goyim have to give you, you take it; if it’s an implement, technology, you can use it. And Aristotle to the Rambam was just a useful mechanism.  He supplied him with information.  But the Rambam wouldn’t sit with him.  He wouldn’t sit with him!

Now the truth is that the Rambam wouldn’t advise us even to read Aristotle’s books. He was able to read the books and pick out of them the things that seemed to him useful. And the truth is, after all is said and done, the Rambam took from Aristotle things which he thought were completely true but they weren’t.  You know, today it's a pity because we learn the Rambam in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah and everything there is perfect except for the few things that come from Greek philosophy. Today they’re meaningless.

So what the Rambam took from Torah is forever and ever.  But what the Rambam took by following the ways of Aristotle are useless today.  That’s why certain parts of Moreh Nevuchim are meaningless today.  And the Vilna Gaon, the Gra, says about the Rambam: הפילוסופיה הארורה הטתו ברוב לקחה, that the cursed philosophy deceived him.  The Gra says that; the accursed philosophy deceived the Rambam! So even when the Rambam tried to pick out the useful things, in some cases he was deceived.  

But that was the Rambam’s approach to Aristotle.  It’s like our approach, let’s say, to medicine.  If a gentile specialist tells you that this and this diet or this or this medicine is good for you, so it’s not associating with him.  It’s just like using his tape recorder.

TAPE # 4

Here's what hysteria does to you

 Chabad shulchim convention group photo before COVID hysteria:

and after COVID hysteria

In the sefer Chafetz Chaim al HaTorah [Va’eschanan] the Chafetz Chaim explains why the posuk of “vi’nishmartem meod l’nafshoseichem”, which includes the commandment to guard one’s health, uses the term of nefesh, rather than the term guf. He explains that while engaging in the process of guarding the physical health, one may not thereby trample on his spiritual health.

Erev Shabbos?! Time to prepare sweet divrei Torah for your Shabbos table

Go to parshagems.com & listen to 2-min parsha insights.

secular subjects

 Q:

Why do you oppose the study of secular subjects? Didn’t the Villa Gaon study secular subjects?

A:

I didn't mention secular subjects at all tonight. I did not mention it at all, so I'm innocent. However, on the question of secular subjects, there's no question at all that knowledge of secular subjects comes in handy. No question at all; very handy. The problem however is where to get it from; that's something else.

TAPE # 60, Rabbi Avigdor Miller