By Bill Lindo
Belize City, May 1st 2020: Today is International Labour Day. After over a 100 years the workers of the world were able to get governments throughout the world to establish by law, May 1st every year as a special day to celebrate workers, who are the creators of wealth in the world. (The United States of America is the only nation-state on planet earth that does not celebrate May 1st as Labour Day. They celebrate in September.)
But this year’s Labour Day is not being celebrated. Why? The entire world has gone mad over a corona virus which is supposed to cause a new disease they are calling Covid 19. However, eventhough WHO has seen the evidence and read the many scientific studies done in China, Europe and Africa, they still refuse to acknowledge that Covid 19 is not a disease, but as Dr. G. Zuniga of Belize has said, a cluster of diseases called a syndrome.
The research has shown that Covid 19 not only damages the human lungs, but the heart, liver, kidney, guts, and brains. Doctors in China and especially those in New York have been saying that Covid 19 patients have symptoms that cannot be explained by “cytokine storms”. Alan Kiliger from Yale School of Medicine has said that up to 30% of early-data patients from Wuhan and New York have lost kidney function and require dialysis. The main shortage in New York has turned to be dialysis volunteers and sterile fluids instead of ventilators. According to Dr. Kiliger, it seems the virus attaches to (ACE2 receptors) kidney cells and attacks them.
However, amongst scientists there is growing awareness that the Covid 19 latches on to different ACE 2 receptors in the body. The gastrointestinal tract has a hundred times more ACE 2 receptors than the lungs. According to Brennan Spiegal (American Journal of Gastroenterology) this helps to explain the myriad of gastrointestinal symptoms recorded in patients – pain, diarrhea, vomiting and others. “What we’re learning is, it seems anyway, that this virus homes in on more than one organ system”, said Spiegel.
Claire Hopkins of the British Rhinological Society stated, “(t)he coronavirus can actually attack and invade olfactory nerve endings.” This causes a loss of smell – anosmia is the medical term. According to Hopkins, some anosmia Covid 19 patients have also experienced confusion, lower blood oxygen levels, and even loss of consciousness – a worrying sign that the virus may be able to travel through the olfactory nerve endings directly to our brains.
New York Doctors are reporting that close to 80% of patients that are put on ventilators die. Ventilators are supposed to save lives by acting as artificial lungs not causing deaths. The Lancet says that the coronavirus blocks haemoglobin from exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen – patients are losing oxygen content in their blood.
Everyday the mass media blasts our brain with misinformation – there is no known cure for Covid 19, but soon, very soon we will have a vaccine that will cure everyone. This mass media and establishment politicians who spout such silliness are not telling the truth. We who were educated in the English speaking world know about the nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty. The Covid 19 that we know on April 24th 2020 is not a single disease but a cluster of diseases with HIV, SARS, and Influenza components causing heart, lungs, stroke, and other problems. This is a very hard target for a vaccine.
Our difficulties in 2020 are a problem of mind-set. After the oligarchs killed US President Jack Kennedy, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the population in especially the United States were so afraid that they willingly submitted to the changing of human values. As they said at the time – it was the end of the age of Pisces (reason) and the dawn of Aquarius (hedonism). After 1972, not only was the economic system changed – the beginning of the neo-liberal era – but more important, the underlying philosophy became the age of “reductionism” — the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. This oligarchical philosophy not only had devastating consequences in agriculture and the arts but it destroyed science as humans had known it from the previous 5,000 years. Suddenly humans could never discover how nature works.
Yes, humans were still making discoveries in nature, but these scientists are of a different breed – they believed that the whole was always more than the sum of its parts. In agriculture they built on the shoulders of the great thinkers of the 1930 to 1960’s and produced marvels of corn production at over 300 bushels per acre without rescued chemicals. In medicine doctors such as Dr. Steven R. Gundry, MD, a physician, medical researcher, and inventor of many devices to protect the heart during heart surgery, and Professor of Surgery and Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Loma Linda University School of Medicine, suddenly left all the honours, wealth, and fame to focus on Restorative Medicine and became a promoter of herbs and supplements – integrative medicine.
Then there is Dr. Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD also a medical researcher, a board-certified cardiologist and a lawyer. He studied law after he worked at a clinic with Dr. Hal Higgins and was disturbed by the treatment the American Medical Association was causing Higgins, his mentor. Dr. Hal Huggins was a dentist who revolutionised modern dental care for his non-traditional dental practice. Dr. Levy is known for his conclusion that all diseases ultimately start and are then propagated by increased “oxidative stress”.
A few weeks ago, the President of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina proudly proclaimed that a herbal-tea Covid-Organics produced in Madagascar by the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research (MIAR) has been tested against Covid 19 and has been proven to work against the Covid 19. He has ordered it to be given to school children in Madagascar for free. Schools and businesses have all reopened in Madagascar because they have found an affordable local cure, and one that is not owned by foreigners but the people of Madagascar. According to a medical doctor and head of the Soavindriana Hospital, the main herb in Covid-Organics is Artemesia Annua, or sweet worm wood, a Chinese plant imported to Madagascar in 1970 to treat malaria. In Chinese medicine, Artemesia Annua is known to help build and strengthen the immune system and is known to fight viruses. In the recent Covid 19 crisis in China, Artemesia Annua along with other Chinese herbs was used to successfully treat Covid 19 patients. In early April the Max Plank Institute in Germany announced the starting of a trial to use Artemesia Annua extracts to test its effectiveness against Covid 19.
And then there is that special vitamin which is not really a vitamin but a molecule that God gave to mankind to help humans to deal with our problems of free radicals and excess oxidative stress – yes, vitamin C. It is hated by most allopathic doctors, those who treat the symptoms of disease with drugs mostly made from coal tar. Homeopathy doctors look for the root cause of diseases and attack diseases with mostly natural medicine but will use drugs if they have to save lives – primum non nocere (first, do no harm).
In his 1753 book, A Treatise of the Scurvy, Dr. James Lind wrote about the substance in lemons and especially lime for the maintenance of a healthy human body (efficient uses of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates). Limes were made a part of the stores given to British seamen on their ocean journeys to prevent scurvy, a disease cause by malnutrition. (This is where the term “limey” came from in relation to British Navy seamen). In 1937 the Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Hungarian-American Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, MD, PhD for his discovery of vitamin C in connection with biological combustion. The chemical name for vitamin C is ascorbic acid which reflects its anti-scurvy properties.
In a 1978 paper, Szent-Gyorgyi proposed a theory of life such that the proteins of the body must be maintained in a state of electron desaturation. All matter has varying proportions of electron, protons, and neutrons. Vitamin C is the main systemic extracellular antioxidant, and when given at high doses, either orally (3-10 gr/d) or intravenously (10-50 gr/d, etc.), can function as an antioxidant to prevent toxicity from ROS and viruses. When oxidized through donating an electron to reduce an ROS, it can be regenerated through a variety of mechanisms, including reducing enzymes and other antioxidants. Because ascorbic acid is a generous donor of electrons, this molecule is supreme in its ability to scavenge free radicals.
Vitamin C can support intracellular antioxidants such as GSH (glutathione) and catalase when the load of ROS is severe. Vitamin C can regenerate GSH when depleted by severe stress. The role of catalase is mainly to reduce hydrogen peroxide. However catalase and SOD are large molecules and do not serve the same role as vitamin C (ascorbate) which is a small molecule and can donate electrons to any ROS that it contacts, including oxidized vitamin E and many other molecules that may get damaged by ROS — in either the intracellular or extracellular space.
Vitamin C also empowers the immune system, promoting chemotaxis, growth, and activity of some immune cells (macrophages, lymphocytes, natural killer cells) allowing the body to more effectively fight an infection. Vitamin C has many other roles in which it functions as a specific co-factor for biochemical reactions. Thus, it is essential for recovery from damage caused by viral or bacterial infections, as well as for the normal functioning of the brain and many essential biochemical pathways.
Overall, vitamin C has a variety of effects (i.e. “pleotropic”) that are not duplicated by intracellular antioxidants. It supports intracellular antioxidants and is necessary as a specific co-factor in many critical biochemical reactions in many organs of the body. Since vitamin C has a similar structure to glucose (sugar), taking Vitamin C you shouldn’t consume any sugar because glucose will be transferred more easily into cells than ascorbic acid and send the ascorbic acid to the bladder.
Iron can act in conjunction with vitamin C to cause a powerful oxidation reaction (the “Fenton reaction”) that generates free radicals. For individuals who are iron-overloaded, vitamin C can cause this problem and can generate hydrogen peroxide throughout the body. This dual function of anti- vs. pro-oxidants is thought to be dose- and level-dependent. What dose should be the best, given that a low IV dose is thought to provide anti-oxidation, but a high dose is thought to provide pro-oxidation? Which action is working best against a virus? This question is at the cutting edge of current research.
For some individuals with a mutation in the Glucose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase (G6P6) gene, high levels of vitamin C in their bloodstream can cause anemia and lysis of their red blood cells. This genetic issue is found most commonly in individuals with African or Middle Eastern descent. If you have G6P6 please speak to your doctor.
Research and development of vaccines and virus specific drugs takes at least a few years to develop and deployed for worldwide use — if indeed possible. There has never been a vaccine available to stop an ongoing major pandemic in the history of mankind. We didn’t have vaccine for SARS, nor MERS. We can’t expect a vaccine for most of the world’s population anytime soon for Covid-19. This is due to the nature of the process: vaccines are always in reaction to a new outbreak, and R&D of vaccines takes a long time. Even if a vaccine for Covid-19 does become available, it will be too late and the world will likely be affected by major chaos with lives lost and economies damaged. It’s clear that with our current thinking (reductionism) it’s not practical.
Belize’s political, medical and merchant leaders need to consider this very carefully. We must face the reality of the current crisis and look elsewhere for more proactive, effective and practical ways for preventing and stopping major pandemics like Covid-19. The integrative medical approach, which employs safe supplements of vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc and other nutrients is highly relevant. This approach is a proactive, effective and eminently practical way to deal with the present pandemic. Treatment with high-dose vitamin C has been widely utilized by hospital ERs and ICUs to prevent death from Covid 19 in China, New York City, Italy, South Korea and United Kingdom. As Dr. Weber from New York City told a reporter from the New York Post, Vitamin C is not a sexy drug or vaccine but it works. Dr. Mao from a leading hospital in Shanghai wrote in March 2020 that he tried high dose vitamin C on 50 patients with Covid 19. None died.
As of today (May 1st 2020) Belize had 18 confirmed cases of Covid 19. Two persons died. For over 21 days, no new cases have been reported. Eventhough government has extended the state of emergency until the end of June, on Monday May 4th most businesses and all government offices will be re-opened. This is good as the local economy has collapsed. In just one week the entire tourism sector completely collapsed. Belize now has over 30,000 permanent unemployed workers. Belize City has close to 8,000 without jobs from the tourism sector. These people need new jobs. Tourism will be dead in Belize for at least the next 2 years according to the UNCTAD.
Government can keep the borders closed and keep our local economy open, including schools. Give everyone including children nutritional supplements and our immune system will deal with Covid 19. Belize is an Independent nation-state. Start acting like we rule ourselves.
Bill Lindo blog 
Amen Bill
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