Scientist Josiah Zayner is brilliant, daring, and may have incurred the wrath of more internet platforms than any person alive. Is America's most interesting person also its most censored?
It is worth noting that while Josiah Zayner was being systematically ridiculed and de-platformed by the powers that be, the timeline overlaps with the end game for "Laboratory Coat Barbie", Elizabeth Holmes, and the Theranos scam. Predictably, that dreadful individual had her dirty water carried and flatulence huffed by the same types of serious "science writers" and big financial media reporters that turn their nose up at a genuine independent thinker who, by the way and however controversial his research, actually bothered to finish his doctorate.
And she intimidated people by speaking in a deep, baritone voice that she faked. Her real voice was completely normal, the only thing about her that was normal.
Holmes is a straight up sociopath. Sociopaths are master manipulators and get away with well... murder or at the very least power over the little people. True, Holmes drank too much of her own Kool-Aid and f'd up. Zayner is an honest and ethical individual (or so it appears). He will always be a "little person" who will be ridiculed and de-platformed at the behest of the sociopaths and their flying monkeys.
He actually got a fairly sympathetic write up in the Walter Isaacson book Code Breaker which is a great read about gene editing technology and CRSPR in particular.
Finding new and interesting ways to warn about the dangers of government and corporate monopoly censorship is important. Otherwise we are going to get tired of the story.
No, we aren't. Not unless you're more concerned with the spectacle and novelty of corporate participatory fascism and inverted totalitarianism than actually protesting it in reality.
If you think novelty is the only thing that will keep you from getting tired of the "story" that is the total state and prevent you from giving up on civil disobedience to it, you were never a rebel to begin with. What Epicurean trite!
I knew Liz Lopatto a bit during undergrad. She was as sanctimonious then as she is now. Notwithstanding the foregoing, I sometimes wish I could be as certain about anything as the sociopaths and flying monkeys. It seems that life might be easier.
As someone who has suffered from ulcerative colitis for 20 years now, DIY fecal transplants are quite common in the U.S. and are approved treatment for IBD in other developed countries. No need to guess why it's not approved in the U.S. ($$ in monoclonal antibody medications you see commercial for all the time), which sucks for people like me who haven't responded to these Pharma medications. Josiah Zayner may be quite odd in his antics, but he's not wrong about fecal transplants because his exact explanation, "repopulating with good bacteria", is exactly what a GI doctor at Weil Cornell told me that he needed to do for me because I've been nuked with antibiotics for recurring c. diff. for 2 months. Finally, I will get the FMT treatment I've long needed because it is indicated for c. diff. in the U.S., thank god.
It is instructive to consider the big themes in advertising over the last 50-60 years. At one time tobacco and alcohol were the largest advertisers. I've noted that of late, pharma and online gambling seem to be the most persistent presence in ad-supported media. I suppose the whole system will crash if someone invents a pill that cancels the thrill of gambling.
The same thing happens with lawyers who bring lawsuits where the facts show that urban densification is harmful. They are blacklisted and then disbarred unless they renounce their evil ways.
Which claims are those? The ones where they were hawking "Brett 'n Heathers' Restorative Ivermectin Elixir"??
Coz I missed those "claims". Whenever there isn't sound science, they seem pretty careful to clarify that fact. Whenever they think there SHOULD BE more/better science around an issue, they're pretty clear on that too.
Now, somebody who's a gaslighting cancel culture attack poodle might misrepresent what they're saying, but fortunately not many of that type infest Taibbi's comment threads.
We can ride motorcycles, shoot guns, smoke cigarettes, and even own lions and tigers in some states, but aren't allowed to repair our gut microbiomes because it's too risky? The protective role of the state seems completely arbitrary in this country. But of course, it isn't when you consider who benefits (hint: not the little people).
Add another "it's for your own good" in the FDA banning the sale of N-Acetyl Cisteine (NAC) recently. It's the supplement version of an amino acid. It can prevent asthma attacks when inhaled. Its topical form can treat rash and other skin problems. Its oral form can prevent liver damage caused by an overdose of acetaminophen. But now it needs to be kept away from the little people...
Silver sulfadiazine is available over the counter in Beirut, but not available, and pretty much invisible, in the US. I've used it often and it is a very good antibacterial. The big pharma put profits over people. It's sickening--really.
I'm sorry about your struggle with UC, but what you say isn't accurate.
FMT isn't an "approved treatment for IBD in other developed countries". It is only approved as a treatment for Clostridium difficile infections. However, some EU countries classify FMT as a "medical procedure", which isn't regulated at all. And others classify it as unregulated "medicinal product". It doesn't mean it's approved by any authority - it simply means that all aspects of the treatment are left to the physician. Who is responsible for screening patients and donors, developing an appropriate protocol and also reporting adverse events, if any.
It's a rather risky approach considering that FMT has been associated with infections with pathogenic and/or antibiotic-resistant E. coli resulting in deaths. And that was in clinical settings with pre-screened donors, rather than a DIY FMT. But even in the countries where FMT is essentially unregulated, it is mainly used to treat C. diff infections.
Lastly, while it's true that pharma companies protect their profits from monoclonal antibody drugs by all means necessary, there are also multiple startups, both in the US and in the EU, working on converting FMT into a probiotic-like formulation. I. e. a defined composition of bacterial strains growing in pure culture. Which can also be adjusted to the specific disease.
Believe it or not, these startups got seed funding from the very same pharma companies who are as happy to make money off of FMT as they are off monoclonal antibodies. It's just FMT is such a regulatory mess (for a good reason, mind you) that in its current implementation they don't want to touch it with a 10 ft pole.
Thank you for the clarification on the difference between approved versus medical procedure classification. Do you know whether the risks of infection with FMT are similar or worse than the infection risk associated with Remicade, Stelara, etc.? I’m not a conspiracy theorist “literally blaming” big pharma for lack of FMT options (procedure or capsule). My concern is not even having the option as a patient to discuss it with my GI doctor. It seems unreasonable in light of the infection risks with various monoclonal t-cell inhibitors, which are on the table. Has FMT proved to be that much more risky in trials or is it solely due to the risk of the antibiotic resistant e. coli strains?
I don't know how the risks of infection as a result of FMT compare to those of mabs like Remicade and Stelara. Mainly because there is so little data on FMT. I'm not too familiar with the topic, but there were at least two US reports of E. coli infections, both involving multiple patients. One was antibiotic-resistant strain which resulted in death, another was enteropathogenic strain. Both were from clinical studies, in which donors were prescreened for the presence of pathogens. And now with Covid pretty much all legitimate FMT were put to a halt while people are trying to develop procedures to minimize the risk of Covid infection due to FMT. The virus can be detected in the GI tract, it's just not known whether it can be transmitted or not.
And I perfectly understand your position. Personally, I'm very much in favor of opening up experimental treatments through "compassionate use" not only to terminal cancer patients, but also to sufferers of debilitating chronic conditions, like UC. With all appropriate disclosures and risk warnings. The current US model is awfully restrictive
But I'm afraid there are too many players who prefer the status quo. Like insurance companies who are interested in maximizing their profits as much as the greediest big pharma exec. And who have more influence over treatment options than the FDA. And malpractice lawyers, against whom no disclosure is ever safe.
No, the industry has faults. I’ve worked in big law and have seen a pharma company “Martin Skrlei” a neonatal medication that treats a condition primarily associated with premature babies born to women on medicare. The potential liability was assessed at $25m because they had raised the cost of that drug 1300%. However, that company was being bought in a multi billion dollar deal so the larger well known acquirer swallowed the risk or deducted in part from the purchase price. DOJ investigated but I never learned what penalty came down, if any.
Yes, those FMT procedures were to treat C. Diff, not IBD. It was also prior to Stool Donor Labs being established which screen donor stool for common infections. Testing for shiga toxin e. coli in stool is very simple and transplants leading to infection are very unlikely now.
Lucky you, and congratulations. I had to take the hard way ultimately after nine years of UC. Can't win 'em all. I was just about gone when there was only one option left: Do or Die.
“That’s the other crazy thing,” Josiah says. “I have a PhD in this stuff from the University of Chicago. So it’s really weird when people point and say, the experts don’t like this. Technically, am I not one of the experts? Don’t I get a say?”
We're at the point where Rand Paul, an actual medical doctor, is banned by the humanities graduates at YouTube for talking about medical stuff.
“When you grow up on a farm, you have all this freedom,” he says. “We don’t have any neighbors or anyone to interact with, so we’re used to just doing what we want. And when you get to this environment were people don’t do that, you’re immediately pegged as, you know, a weirdo.”
This gets back to the Hamilton vs Jefferson differences. It is endemic. At present we have the Hamiltons (Elite Democrats and establishment Republicans) and the Jeffersons (everyone else regardless of whether they know it or not).
Hamilton distrusted popular will and believed that the federal government should wield considerable power in order steer a successful course, Jefferson placed his trust in the people as governors.
The US is a country that attracted the independent and enterprise-minded resident. Ironically it was the Jefferson view that created the creative class that invented the tools and technology now exploited by the Hamiltons to put an end to that creative independence.
The source of this dysfunction is the emergence of successful entrepreneurs driven not so much by the motivation to improve a product or service... but driven to think that they could change the world for the better, and reap the rewards commensurate with their over-inflated contribution. They are Hamilton-squared and they naturally line up with the other Hamiltons infesting all institutions of influence and power.
Ironically in his farewell address, the president that appointed Jefferson and Hamilton to his cabinet, George Washington warned that the creation of political factions, “sharpened by the spirit of revenge,” would most certainly lead to “formal and permanent despotism.”
Apparently we all failed to heed that warning. Now the Hamiltons are in power and out of control.
Recent US crimes against Haiti people -- by Hillary , Condoleezza Rice/Bush, Obama -- CORRUPTION, coups, military invasions (see general Smedley Butler), theft of $16B+ earthquake financial aid, century of massive exploitation of one of the poorest country. UN (Nepal soldiers) brought in cholera (30,000+ dead, million sick) but negated the horror for six (read slowly - six) years.
A detailed, most horrible recent history of US colonialism -- kudos to Aaron Mate (always remember how vulgarly he was attacked by TYT's despicables - Ana & Cenk). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3iT3y7MktI
PS!: Going way back, 2nd President John Adams (1797-1801) supported Haiti and the revolution. He got voted out and Jefferson reversed policy immediately, black listing Haiti and yanking out support. One of Jefferson’s protégés was Monroe, of the Monroe Doctrine.
Adams’ predecessor, George Washington, had no use for the black leaders of Saint-Domingue. Nor did Adams’ vice president, Thomas Jefferson. He dreaded the prospect of black sailors, supercargoes and missionaries spreading the message of freedom and revolution into the Southern states. “We have to fear it,” Jefferson wrote Adams.
PS2: Both wings of the US War party have centuries of identical foreign policies -- feeding and grunting together at same throughs...
It may seem cool and hip to support the Haitian Revolution, but shortly after the overthrow of the French regime, the new government murdered almost every white person in Haiti. They killed, among others, whites who had fought side by side with them to topple the French, and children under ten years old, who were torn from their parents and the murdered in the streets. When most of the murder had finished, the government declared an amnesty to encourage the few remaining whites to exit their hiding places. They did so, and then those few were killed, as well.
Haiti revolution was against SLAVERY -- to clarify "our Nathan's facts" propaganda (I am sure he now wants to free China but not Palestinians):
"Under the blows of your barbarous whip we have accumulated for you the treasures you enjoy in this colony; the human race has suffered to see with what barbarity you have treated men like yourself".
Zayner's sin is unforgivable. He is what Germans call a Querdenker, often mistranslated as contrarian. It means "cross-thinker," establishing a new paradigm for understanding information.
Medical bureaucrats have entire careers invested in existing paradigms, not in serving anyone's health. They are no different than other bureaucrats, wanting to preserve their position and power regardless of the cost to other people. Dr. Anthony Fauci often wears a stethoscope as part of his performance art. I seriously doubt he has actually treated a real patient in 40-plus years. He detests applied scientists (physicians trying to serve their patients' needs) because they're interested in what actually works, not in preserving the power of the bureaucrats.
No phrase is more moronic than calling that man "America's top doc". I actually appreciate when someone says it, because I know I can safely ignore that person the rest of my life.
I was no Trump fan, yet throughout his amplified, primarily by msm, diatribes
he was able to accomplish a few actions that I applaud.
But I’m sorry to say Trump did what every one of his predecessors did, he listened to the “experts”. Trump was humming along, fighting off false allegations coming at him from the left, and the right; then boom, medical emergency!!!!!!!!!
The scummy media and scummy swamp threw everything they could fabricate at him; and as sharp as he may, or may not be, even a super ego like ALL politicians possess, Trump turned to the so-called “experts”.
It was either that or stand in front of the White House and sing “Pulling Mussels From A Shell” to the taxpayers who came by for a visit; and the illegal aliens who came by to measure for new curtains.
I used to regard Dr. Fauci as a hero. Now I realize he's one part Dr. CYA and one part Dr. Death. He funded the gain of function studies at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, research that most likely killed five million people. But Fauci will never admit it. It's long past the time for him "to spend more time with his family. "
Amen. And I may be accused of over-weighting style as a revelator of a person's character but my very last bit of dim-and-fading respect for Fauci died out when I recently learned that he sometimes wears a freaking stethescope when engaged in his "performative medical bureaucrat" schtick.
Dude probably doesn't even remember which end he blows in and which end he sticks up his ass.
You missed the whole point. It is not innovation, it's freedom. It's also data. I am fully vaccinated, caught breakthrough covid, and was treated with Remdesivir. Eight hours later I was 80% better. My wife and daughter both caught breakthrough covid as well. They were treated with monoclonal antibodies. All three of us are now fully-protected. None of us needs a booster shot. Those are being demanded by health bureaucrats who have no interest in keeping people healthy, but a great deal of interest in maintaining prestige and power. Refusal to consider immunity resulting from actual infection isn't following the science, it's following the politics.
The US is one of only two countries in the world founded by malcontents who distrust authority. Most countries have long traditions of conformance and obedience. You appear to believe that individual liberty is irrelevant; Let me assure you that the only liberty that is relevant is individual. The other choice is tyranny of the majority, which I reject and abominate. I have no idea what your final sentence means.
In a previous comment on these threads, you stated that "sexual identity is intrinsically used in the service of capitalism, but it is not so much sexual identity that is intrinsically used in the service of capitalism, but rather the defining characteristic, and eventually the dialectic, of sexual identity."
Isn't this simply a crude rhetorical device, a cheap means of pointing out that while not all hookers are transsexuals, some transsexuals are hookers, and that while all VFW commanders are VFW members, some VFW members, commanders and non-commanders alike, might be...hookers...and transsexuals-- but not be BOTH hookers AND transsexuals?
Great article! Josiah shouldn't be censored at all but he is kidding himself. They aren't trying to protect us, they are trying to protect their profits and their agenda. Josiah is a genius, we need him. and he seems to grasp the foundational American ideal, we need to be free, and that includes being your own doctor.
I wish desperately for you to be wrong, and fear desperately that you are correct. The authoritarians are trying to control the population of people of color by encouraging them to hate the police, leading to soaring murder rates for people of color. Each murder is blamed on something that does not actually exist, systemic racism. That doesn't mean that racism does not exist; it is alive and well in the Democratic Party, which thrives on blacks blaming whites and police for their problems, when the plight of today's urban black population was predicted accurately nearly sixty years ago by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the great liberal thinkers of the 20th century. Read the Moynihan Report. LBJ did, and realized that if he could destroy the black nuclear family, and co-opt the self-anointed civil rights leaders by promising them a place at the table.
The "civil rights leaders" have steadily delivered the black vote to Democrats, while staying quiet about the destruction of generation after generation of black youth. Whites are blamed, law enforcement is blamed, while the truth is revealed in literally thousands of sociology studies. When adjusted for number of parents in the youth's home, disparities in education, employment, incarceration, wealth, health, lifespan, whites and blacks have very similar outcomes. There remains a small difference, and I'm willing to ascribe that remainder to racism until we have a better explanation. But it's politically incorrect to point out that the problem is a cultural one, caused cynically by Democrats.
I think you adroitly described the current realities related to the black community and their Democrat party. As for everyone else, I am of the opinion it has been determined, by those in positions of power, that with the world population closing in on 8 billion people, things are becoming unmanageable.
We have all sorts of fiascos taking place, global warming, covid, wars and rumors of war, vaccine mandates, monetary manipulation, supply chain manipulation and food modification, to name a few. A variety of disasters, pick your favorite one.
When you have so many folks it is quite easy to treat them as numbers. And since it has been determined 8 billion is 4 billion (an arbitrary number) too many, different programs are created to trim the fat.
I find this issue real and fascinating. Of course there are those who determine, for whatever reason, it’s a crazy conspiracy theory that they are too intelligent to fall for; and they may be right.
But up until the middle of the play, it was a crazy conspiracy theory that Lincoln shouldn’t go to Ford’s theater.
The lab leak hypothesis was a conspiracy theory until it wasn't. COVID19 was deadly to everybody, but we know better today (although saying it will get you deplatformed immediately). Parler was the means whereby vicious white supremacists mounted a violent insurrection at the Capitol, until proof was found that the "approved" social media platforms were the ones that handled all the communication. And, the white supremacist-led violent insurrection at the Capitol was gospel to the ruling authoritarians until they lost their efforts to suppress video evidence yesterday, when contemporaneous recording of the event showed clearly the authoritarians' claims were pure BS.
Even the "everybody agrees" anthropogenic global warming is suspect. The global climate is arguably the most complex of all complex systems of which humans are a member. Every member of a complex system affects every other member, so we must be affecting the global climate. The first thing I learned about complex systems is to approach them with humility. The AGW enthusiasts approach it with hubris.
"Crazy conspiracy theory" is redundant. Conspiracies never occur. Powerful people never associate and discuss aligned interests leading to coordinated actions. It's axiomatic that people who believe such things are ignorant, delusional, or both.
By 'low IQ and feeble,' are you referring to the inbredneck genetic debris at the 'elites' level ruining and running the planet (into the ground)? A genuine question. Cos defo somebody shat in their tiny gene pool quite some time ago.
I know how to put an end to that. Put the KKK iin charge of all abortion facilities.
Of course a year or two after that happened the KKK would start receiving Congressional Medals of Honor, Kennedy Center awards and of course the not-so-Nobel Peace Prize.
I picture him like Herbert West in Re-Animator, pooh-poohing (bum fun pun intended) and harrumphing every parry and jab and thrust at his fascinating home science kit art exhibits. "Laugh at my visionary gut extractions and extrapolations, will they? I WILL HAVE THE LAST SCIENTIFIC LAUGH!!!"
Is it possible that all this internet censoring is just an extension of the "helicopter parenting" mentality? I would guess that many of the people making these decisions are children of that ilk. They grew up under a constant watchful eye, and protected from anything deemed dangerous. When I think of how different that was from my childhood it's striking. Zayner mentions growing up on a farm, which I'd guess, was more like my childhood - in the summer, we kids would head out shortly after waking up, and the parents might only see us once during the day, and just long enough to wolf down a sandwich at lunchtime. Today, your average suburban parent doing that would probably get arrested for child endangerment. Is it possible that those children carried all that fear of the unknown into adulthood and are now in positions of authority to act on it?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on what that anti-fragile rationalism would look like. Seems pretty close to what science is supposed to be, but far from what we have now, where there's always an agenda driving everything.
When I first started reading your comment I thought of John Vervaeke and, yep, that's where you were going. I'm on episode 39. Thanks for the tip. His analysis really brings things together. Will it have broad influence? How do these new "socio-cognitive" frameworks proliferate? I hope it's not too late.
Or how about this --- nobody is held accountable for any thing they do any more.
Have a kid? Don't have to make them breakfast, because the school will do that. Commit a crime? No bail necessary, keep the hair extensions, you need them. Create sham corrupt financial instruments for people to invest in? Hoozah! Become a "public servant" and buy a house on Martha's Vinyard? Of course.
We are in the whirlwind. Today Pres. DumbAss said the guys on horses "will pay." Forget the "for what" part and go straight to, "Afghanistan (wag the dog) drone strike kills ten." Who is paying for that?
"How do we ever expect people to be able to make this choice on their own, if we never give them the information, or access to the information and say, “Here, look. Decide based on the data what you want to do.”
Precisely the point. They don't want us to do this, only what the experts decide is right for us
In the case described in the article absolutely. Individual choice, individual risk. My fear is that CRISPR technology is making it too easy for an accidental or intentional plague to eventually afflict us...
Barry James Marshall—Discovery of Helicobacter pylori as a Cause of Peptic Ulcer
He was mocked, shamed, and censored by the elite medical establishment for decades because he figured out that drinking milk and avoiding hot salsa wouldn't help your ulcer. It was always H. Pylori, and antibiotics would fix you right up.
Marshall was unsuccessful in developing an animal model, so he decided to experiment upon himself. In 1984, following a baseline endoscopy which showed a normal gastric mucosa, he drank a culture of the organism. Three days later he developed nausea and achlorhydria. Vomiting occurred and on day 8 a repeat endoscopy and biopsy showed marked gastritis and a positive H. pylori culture. At day 14, a third endoscopy was performed and he then began treatment with antibiotics and bismuth. He recovered promptly and thus had fulfilled Koch’s postulates for the role of H. pylori in gastritis.
A friend's wife was taking stomach acid pills for years. When he suggested a test for H. pylori bacteria her doctor was outraged. But -- she tested positive and -- has been cured -- a doctor and insurance industry "lost" a profitable patient...
People ridicule such explanations as cynical and simplistic. HOWEVER. If we go back to the old tests of "Does it have predictive power?" and "Does it have explanatory power?", we have to confront the reality that wherever it appears malice and greed are driving our medical industries, they are. A rare simple explanation.
I am acquainted with Josiah. I think taking down his Youtube (and every other biohacker) is wrong. No, Josiah is NOT "brilliant". Josiah is a guy who had a kid and had to do something. He has good marketing and sales skills. And he has some amazing journalist contacts. The guy is a mediocre scientist - at best.
That said, Josiah has evolved. I advised him 5 years ago he better stop injecting on stage because at that time he was selling pure bullshit that could not possibly work. He may have been quite aware it could not work. But if someone followed his directions to do this at home using his kit, that person could easily kill themselves. Josiah was pretty ignorant about immunology then. What he has picked up since, I don't know. Josiah stopped injecting on stage - instantly. And he immediately lit into another biohacker who imitated Josiah on stage, injecting himself with something. I presume he did that to differentiate himself for legal reasons.
What I told him was that I knew that a prosecutor and police would brush aside any "not for human use" disclaimers and put him away in that instance. I know this because it happened to a friend, who was then a professor at a major university. This professor give an unapproved medication (such can be oral, injectable, or absorbable), and someone died. If you don't have FDA clinical trial approval - you will get charged with a homicide. The prof was. Lost everything. In that case, I reviewed things and I do not believe the compound caused this death. It was bad luck. There are hundreds of thousands of people per year that have the cause of death in that case. The subject was in the prime age for death from this cause. But, the law looks at it alone and says the odds are tiny of it happening the same day. A jury would agree. Professor took the plea bargain.
There are VERY good reasons why the FDA has this power to regulate Matt. We see this now with people hearing about someone's friend who had, say, a brain bleed within a week of getting vaccinated and immediately thinks the brain bleed must be from vaccination. But, in the USA, there are 16,000 or so of these each year. (Japan has around 25,000 with half US population.) So, if you vaccinate half the USA, there should be around 8,000 brain bleeds in vaccinated people within a year. Divide that by 365 days in a year, and you should have around 22 people that get a brain bleed within 24 hours of vaccination. If you extend that to 7 days, you should have 153 or so.
There are things to criticize about our vaccine campaign. But Josiah is quite an ignoramus, and learning way too much by hard knocks. I am happy to help him, but he is also pretty headstrong, in the Dunning Kreuger sense of the word.
Oh, yes. Matt. That other biohacker Josiah attacked publicly for injecting himself (Aaron Traywick) was found dead not long after. It was ruled suicide, but Mr. Traywick had a history of not exactly cricket financial dealings. I am not so sure that Mr. Traywick didn't "have a little accident" in the Soprano's sense of the phrase.
Now, Mr. Traywick injected himself with a herpes vaccine that I know something about. That vaccine was well designed, carefully made, and would be effective. Nothing Josiah has come out with yet is anywhere near as sophisticated. I know that biohacker pretty well, and I can put you in touch with him. Mr. Traywick's stunt was not necessarily what that designer wanted to happen or approved of.
Matt can contact me. I am connected to Josiah on Facebook. I will probably duplicate this post there when TK News rolls it out. That said, what particular fact(s) are you looking for corroboration of? The person prosecuted I will not reveal. That record was expunged.
I can post papers about brain bleeds. But somehow I don't think that is what you want. Josiah's injections on stage are in news stories. I posted a link to Aaron Traywick's death and onstage event.
So I am rather at a loss for what it is that you think I need to provide "independent proof" for.
in essence, the clamp down is stopping a lot of innovation. Taibbi is correct in that exploration of "fringe" ideas is where new discoveries come from. Edison tested a great many things before he found a filament that would work in a light bulb. This kind of clamping down does in fact stifle creative innovation. There is also a kind of forceful imposition and maintenance of a rather conservative status quo, a do not step outside these lines. And as the article makes plain, there is a massive assumption that the american people are essential dumb herd animals who cannot reason and so must be protected from themselves. This kind of thinking has never worked out well in history, it won't work out well now.
What is true is that the current system in the US is crumbling, it possesses many flaws that the pandemic made more apparent. American meritocracy is not working and it is not going to work. FUrther the US system is extremely corrupt when it comes both to science and medicine. I hear that sort of thing all the time: the US medicines are the safest (no they aren't but they are the most expensive) and the best (no they aren't but they are the most expensive). zayner put it quite well, other countries can (surprise) do science too! They make good stuff too! other systems and approaches work just as well as ours! the only thing ours has is monopoly control over pricing, that is it, it's why we pay more than any other people on the planet for our medicines.
And so, there is medical tourism, traveling to other countries for procedures. the elderly in my town regularly travel to mexico on a bus to buy their medicines, for about a third of what they pay here. people in this country have died because they can't afford insulin (a patent free medicine) or epipens (people are now making their own). the system itself is forcing innovation on all of us and it will try (and ultimately fail) to force us to stop.
The medicine that i needed to save my life costs one million dollars in the US, in Russia it was 12,000 dollars. it is kind of like that old jack benny joke: your money or your life, well, i will take my life and my money. and i don't really care what the FDA or the medical industry thinks i should do, not any longer. and i am not alone in that, not even close.
"Instead, it just becomes a system where you have to trust the experts and you have to trust the government. I’m like, who trusts the government? Let’s be honest. It doesn’t matter what political party you are part of. Come on!"
Most (I believe) would agree with Josiah's statement above. That said, how can someone then trust the government enough to allow an experimental vaccine to be injected into their body to save them from a virus with a mortality rate well below 1%? Governments lie when the truth fits better - but we're supposed to believe that "this time" we can trust them?? Nah....
It is worth noting that while Josiah Zayner was being systematically ridiculed and de-platformed by the powers that be, the timeline overlaps with the end game for "Laboratory Coat Barbie", Elizabeth Holmes, and the Theranos scam. Predictably, that dreadful individual had her dirty water carried and flatulence huffed by the same types of serious "science writers" and big financial media reporters that turn their nose up at a genuine independent thinker who, by the way and however controversial his research, actually bothered to finish his doctorate.
The triumph of fluff over substance.
But she was pretty, and dressed like Steve Jobs!! The expert/elite class is trash
Not that pretty, actually.
But a daughter of a VP at another huge swindle company -- Enron !!
You have to think in relative terms.
@Normal
And STILL pulled off that SCAM ! I agree, yes.
And she intimidated people by speaking in a deep, baritone voice that she faked. Her real voice was completely normal, the only thing about her that was normal.
That voice was so bizarre, and so obviously fake. Yet it worked for her, for a long time.
@nancy
It is *truly as if people *want to be conned ! Critical thinking is definitely a dying dinosaur.
This is a great point. Now her argument is she was abused and not a fraud just an honest Silicon Valley failure!
How many millions did she pay her lawyers to come up with that little ruse? Or did she dream it up herself?
Holmes is a straight up sociopath. Sociopaths are master manipulators and get away with well... murder or at the very least power over the little people. True, Holmes drank too much of her own Kool-Aid and f'd up. Zayner is an honest and ethical individual (or so it appears). He will always be a "little person" who will be ridiculed and de-platformed at the behest of the sociopaths and their flying monkeys.
Kudos for the flying monkey reference. Very apt. I think I'll have to "borrow" that one...
E. Holmes is a daughter of a VP at another huge swindle company -- Enron !!
Thefts at Enron allowed her to study at "elite" Stanford ;-))
She found the glitch in the matrix for sure
Well fucking said.
This is why I love Taibbi. Never heard of this guy or this field but damn I'm intrigued and enthralled.
I agree, and I'd like to hear more about interesting people that we aren't supposed to hear about.
I Second the motion
Agreed. And being from the Great Plains, very impressed by the Starkweather reference.
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/bowel-motions
He actually got a fairly sympathetic write up in the Walter Isaacson book Code Breaker which is a great read about gene editing technology and CRSPR in particular.
Finding new and interesting ways to warn about the dangers of government and corporate monopoly censorship is important. Otherwise we are going to get tired of the story.
No, we aren't. Not unless you're more concerned with the spectacle and novelty of corporate participatory fascism and inverted totalitarianism than actually protesting it in reality.
If you think novelty is the only thing that will keep you from getting tired of the "story" that is the total state and prevent you from giving up on civil disobedience to it, you were never a rebel to begin with. What Epicurean trite!
He was in the documentary Unnatural Selection on Netflix. It was SUPER interesting and I’d definitely recommend checking it out.
Never heard of him personally, but did catch the South Park episode combining home fecal transplants with Dune (and a splash of Tom Brady).
"I don’t want people playing with pathogens in their bedrooms."
Much better to play with pathogens in virus labs in China . . . where it's safer.
Let them eat pangolins.
I don't know why exactly but i'm sitting in my office cackling with glee at this. Thanks.
Lol.
Thus comment is brilliant
I knew Liz Lopatto a bit during undergrad. She was as sanctimonious then as she is now. Notwithstanding the foregoing, I sometimes wish I could be as certain about anything as the sociopaths and flying monkeys. It seems that life might be easier.
Excellent point
As someone who has suffered from ulcerative colitis for 20 years now, DIY fecal transplants are quite common in the U.S. and are approved treatment for IBD in other developed countries. No need to guess why it's not approved in the U.S. ($$ in monoclonal antibody medications you see commercial for all the time), which sucks for people like me who haven't responded to these Pharma medications. Josiah Zayner may be quite odd in his antics, but he's not wrong about fecal transplants because his exact explanation, "repopulating with good bacteria", is exactly what a GI doctor at Weil Cornell told me that he needed to do for me because I've been nuked with antibiotics for recurring c. diff. for 2 months. Finally, I will get the FMT treatment I've long needed because it is indicated for c. diff. in the U.S., thank god.
I can't help noticing how many of Matt's cancelled folks are getting cancelled for advocating inexpensive potential vaccines and treatments.
It is instructive to consider the big themes in advertising over the last 50-60 years. At one time tobacco and alcohol were the largest advertisers. I've noted that of late, pharma and online gambling seem to be the most persistent presence in ad-supported media. I suppose the whole system will crash if someone invents a pill that cancels the thrill of gambling.
We gamble every time we swallow a pharmaceutical.
Amen😊
Insurance.
And ambulance chasing lawyers!
The same thing happens with lawyers who bring lawsuits where the facts show that urban densification is harmful. They are blacklisted and then disbarred unless they renounce their evil ways.
Key word inexpensive
This is a world of difference from Bret Weinstein. Bret’s claims weren’t backed up by science. Josiah’s were.
Which claims are those? The ones where they were hawking "Brett 'n Heathers' Restorative Ivermectin Elixir"??
Coz I missed those "claims". Whenever there isn't sound science, they seem pretty careful to clarify that fact. Whenever they think there SHOULD BE more/better science around an issue, they're pretty clear on that too.
Now, somebody who's a gaslighting cancel culture attack poodle might misrepresent what they're saying, but fortunately not many of that type infest Taibbi's comment threads.
You're correct about Bret and Heather. Thank you.
Exactly
We can ride motorcycles, shoot guns, smoke cigarettes, and even own lions and tigers in some states, but aren't allowed to repair our gut microbiomes because it's too risky? The protective role of the state seems completely arbitrary in this country. But of course, it isn't when you consider who benefits (hint: not the little people).
Add another "it's for your own good" in the FDA banning the sale of N-Acetyl Cisteine (NAC) recently. It's the supplement version of an amino acid. It can prevent asthma attacks when inhaled. Its topical form can treat rash and other skin problems. Its oral form can prevent liver damage caused by an overdose of acetaminophen. But now it needs to be kept away from the little people...
Silver sulfadiazine is available over the counter in Beirut, but not available, and pretty much invisible, in the US. I've used it often and it is a very good antibacterial. The big pharma put profits over people. It's sickening--really.
https://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/regulatory/us-senator-npa-press-fda-nac-supplements
Working on it. I agree.
Microbiomes are fascinating, and we have much to learn about them
I'm sorry about your struggle with UC, but what you say isn't accurate.
FMT isn't an "approved treatment for IBD in other developed countries". It is only approved as a treatment for Clostridium difficile infections. However, some EU countries classify FMT as a "medical procedure", which isn't regulated at all. And others classify it as unregulated "medicinal product". It doesn't mean it's approved by any authority - it simply means that all aspects of the treatment are left to the physician. Who is responsible for screening patients and donors, developing an appropriate protocol and also reporting adverse events, if any.
It's a rather risky approach considering that FMT has been associated with infections with pathogenic and/or antibiotic-resistant E. coli resulting in deaths. And that was in clinical settings with pre-screened donors, rather than a DIY FMT. But even in the countries where FMT is essentially unregulated, it is mainly used to treat C. diff infections.
Lastly, while it's true that pharma companies protect their profits from monoclonal antibody drugs by all means necessary, there are also multiple startups, both in the US and in the EU, working on converting FMT into a probiotic-like formulation. I. e. a defined composition of bacterial strains growing in pure culture. Which can also be adjusted to the specific disease.
Believe it or not, these startups got seed funding from the very same pharma companies who are as happy to make money off of FMT as they are off monoclonal antibodies. It's just FMT is such a regulatory mess (for a good reason, mind you) that in its current implementation they don't want to touch it with a 10 ft pole.
Thank you for the clarification on the difference between approved versus medical procedure classification. Do you know whether the risks of infection with FMT are similar or worse than the infection risk associated with Remicade, Stelara, etc.? I’m not a conspiracy theorist “literally blaming” big pharma for lack of FMT options (procedure or capsule). My concern is not even having the option as a patient to discuss it with my GI doctor. It seems unreasonable in light of the infection risks with various monoclonal t-cell inhibitors, which are on the table. Has FMT proved to be that much more risky in trials or is it solely due to the risk of the antibiotic resistant e. coli strains?
I don't know how the risks of infection as a result of FMT compare to those of mabs like Remicade and Stelara. Mainly because there is so little data on FMT. I'm not too familiar with the topic, but there were at least two US reports of E. coli infections, both involving multiple patients. One was antibiotic-resistant strain which resulted in death, another was enteropathogenic strain. Both were from clinical studies, in which donors were prescreened for the presence of pathogens. And now with Covid pretty much all legitimate FMT were put to a halt while people are trying to develop procedures to minimize the risk of Covid infection due to FMT. The virus can be detected in the GI tract, it's just not known whether it can be transmitted or not.
And I perfectly understand your position. Personally, I'm very much in favor of opening up experimental treatments through "compassionate use" not only to terminal cancer patients, but also to sufferers of debilitating chronic conditions, like UC. With all appropriate disclosures and risk warnings. The current US model is awfully restrictive
But I'm afraid there are too many players who prefer the status quo. Like insurance companies who are interested in maximizing their profits as much as the greediest big pharma exec. And who have more influence over treatment options than the FDA. And malpractice lawyers, against whom no disclosure is ever safe.
Would it be so bad to blame big pharma for something? I guess so. It seems we all know who the 800 pound gorilla is these days.
No, the industry has faults. I’ve worked in big law and have seen a pharma company “Martin Skrlei” a neonatal medication that treats a condition primarily associated with premature babies born to women on medicare. The potential liability was assessed at $25m because they had raised the cost of that drug 1300%. However, that company was being bought in a multi billion dollar deal so the larger well known acquirer swallowed the risk or deducted in part from the purchase price. DOJ investigated but I never learned what penalty came down, if any.
Friend of mine worked at a company that worked on this kind of stuff.
Fascinating shit.
...I regret nothing.
Fecal transplants are done in the USA. There was, in 2019, a warning issued by the FDA after 2 immunocompromised patients died following a fecal transplant. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/why-did-the-fda-issue-a-fecal-transplant-warning
Yes, those FMT procedures were to treat C. Diff, not IBD. It was also prior to Stool Donor Labs being established which screen donor stool for common infections. Testing for shiga toxin e. coli in stool is very simple and transplants leading to infection are very unlikely now.
I wanna know what bulk yellow powder antibiotic that guy ingested. Normally I would think ciprofloxacin plus metronidazole (or maybe vanco).
C diff is a fucking nightmare. You have my sympathy and well wishes.
Lucky you, and congratulations. I had to take the hard way ultimately after nine years of UC. Can't win 'em all. I was just about gone when there was only one option left: Do or Die.
“That’s the other crazy thing,” Josiah says. “I have a PhD in this stuff from the University of Chicago. So it’s really weird when people point and say, the experts don’t like this. Technically, am I not one of the experts? Don’t I get a say?”
We're at the point where Rand Paul, an actual medical doctor, is banned by the humanities graduates at YouTube for talking about medical stuff.
He's a medical doctor who can't play one on tv.
The expertise had to be approved/ allowed by Big Pharma ie no threat to their sales
“When you grow up on a farm, you have all this freedom,” he says. “We don’t have any neighbors or anyone to interact with, so we’re used to just doing what we want. And when you get to this environment were people don’t do that, you’re immediately pegged as, you know, a weirdo.”
This gets back to the Hamilton vs Jefferson differences. It is endemic. At present we have the Hamiltons (Elite Democrats and establishment Republicans) and the Jeffersons (everyone else regardless of whether they know it or not).
Hamilton distrusted popular will and believed that the federal government should wield considerable power in order steer a successful course, Jefferson placed his trust in the people as governors.
The US is a country that attracted the independent and enterprise-minded resident. Ironically it was the Jefferson view that created the creative class that invented the tools and technology now exploited by the Hamiltons to put an end to that creative independence.
The source of this dysfunction is the emergence of successful entrepreneurs driven not so much by the motivation to improve a product or service... but driven to think that they could change the world for the better, and reap the rewards commensurate with their over-inflated contribution. They are Hamilton-squared and they naturally line up with the other Hamiltons infesting all institutions of influence and power.
Ironically in his farewell address, the president that appointed Jefferson and Hamilton to his cabinet, George Washington warned that the creation of political factions, “sharpened by the spirit of revenge,” would most certainly lead to “formal and permanent despotism.”
Apparently we all failed to heed that warning. Now the Hamiltons are in power and out of control.
Well - a bit on the first and third US presidents - see in PS1 below ;-))
An extraordinary interview !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3iT3y7MktI
Recent US crimes against Haiti people -- by Hillary , Condoleezza Rice/Bush, Obama -- CORRUPTION, coups, military invasions (see general Smedley Butler), theft of $16B+ earthquake financial aid, century of massive exploitation of one of the poorest country. UN (Nepal soldiers) brought in cholera (30,000+ dead, million sick) but negated the horror for six (read slowly - six) years.
A detailed, most horrible recent history of US colonialism -- kudos to Aaron Mate (always remember how vulgarly he was attacked by TYT's despicables - Ana & Cenk). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3iT3y7MktI
PS!: Going way back, 2nd President John Adams (1797-1801) supported Haiti and the revolution. He got voted out and Jefferson reversed policy immediately, black listing Haiti and yanking out support. One of Jefferson’s protégés was Monroe, of the Monroe Doctrine.
Adams’ predecessor, George Washington, had no use for the black leaders of Saint-Domingue. Nor did Adams’ vice president, Thomas Jefferson. He dreaded the prospect of black sailors, supercargoes and missionaries spreading the message of freedom and revolution into the Southern states. “We have to fear it,” Jefferson wrote Adams.
PS2: Both wings of the US War party have centuries of identical foreign policies -- feeding and grunting together at same throughs...
It may seem cool and hip to support the Haitian Revolution, but shortly after the overthrow of the French regime, the new government murdered almost every white person in Haiti. They killed, among others, whites who had fought side by side with them to topple the French, and children under ten years old, who were torn from their parents and the murdered in the streets. When most of the murder had finished, the government declared an amnesty to encourage the few remaining whites to exit their hiding places. They did so, and then those few were killed, as well.
Sure -- you have now explained "everything"...
-- Listen to truly outstanding Mike Duncan's podcast = "Revolutions" -- on Haiti revolution
-- Listen to 200 years of US imperial colonialism in Haiti
Haiti revolution was against SLAVERY -- to clarify "our Nathan's facts" propaganda (I am sure he now wants to free China but not Palestinians):
"Under the blows of your barbarous whip we have accumulated for you the treasures you enjoy in this colony; the human race has suffered to see with what barbarity you have treated men like yourself".
– Toussaint Louverture -- President of Haiti
Disgusting..... as usual.
Good point about U.S. political roots. Hear, hear!
Great reminder thank you
Zayner's sin is unforgivable. He is what Germans call a Querdenker, often mistranslated as contrarian. It means "cross-thinker," establishing a new paradigm for understanding information.
Medical bureaucrats have entire careers invested in existing paradigms, not in serving anyone's health. They are no different than other bureaucrats, wanting to preserve their position and power regardless of the cost to other people. Dr. Anthony Fauci often wears a stethoscope as part of his performance art. I seriously doubt he has actually treated a real patient in 40-plus years. He detests applied scientists (physicians trying to serve their patients' needs) because they're interested in what actually works, not in preserving the power of the bureaucrats.
No phrase is more moronic than calling that man "America's top doc". I actually appreciate when someone says it, because I know I can safely ignore that person the rest of my life.
I’ve, wisely of course, said this before, so
PAY ATTENTION!!! 🥷
I was no Trump fan, yet throughout his amplified, primarily by msm, diatribes
he was able to accomplish a few actions that I applaud.
But I’m sorry to say Trump did what every one of his predecessors did, he listened to the “experts”. Trump was humming along, fighting off false allegations coming at him from the left, and the right; then boom, medical emergency!!!!!!!!!
The scummy media and scummy swamp threw everything they could fabricate at him; and as sharp as he may, or may not be, even a super ego like ALL politicians possess, Trump turned to the so-called “experts”.
It was either that or stand in front of the White House and sing “Pulling Mussels From A Shell” to the taxpayers who came by for a visit; and the illegal aliens who came by to measure for new curtains.
Because he'd been with the CDC since the 1980s.
He's a bureaucrat's bureaucrat.
Also, he was steering money to programs the Pentagon wanted to see grow.
Why would Drumpf fire a guy like that? Fauci was taking the heat for the pandemic. That's useful, right?
I used to regard Dr. Fauci as a hero. Now I realize he's one part Dr. CYA and one part Dr. Death. He funded the gain of function studies at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, research that most likely killed five million people. But Fauci will never admit it. It's long past the time for him "to spend more time with his family. "
Read Kennedys book on him due out soon
There is more about and against Fauci. He should go.
Amen. And I may be accused of over-weighting style as a revelator of a person's character but my very last bit of dim-and-fading respect for Fauci died out when I recently learned that he sometimes wears a freaking stethescope when engaged in his "performative medical bureaucrat" schtick.
Dude probably doesn't even remember which end he blows in and which end he sticks up his ass.
Fauci hasnt treated a patient since interning- when was that 1930??
You missed the whole point. It is not innovation, it's freedom. It's also data. I am fully vaccinated, caught breakthrough covid, and was treated with Remdesivir. Eight hours later I was 80% better. My wife and daughter both caught breakthrough covid as well. They were treated with monoclonal antibodies. All three of us are now fully-protected. None of us needs a booster shot. Those are being demanded by health bureaucrats who have no interest in keeping people healthy, but a great deal of interest in maintaining prestige and power. Refusal to consider immunity resulting from actual infection isn't following the science, it's following the politics.
The US is one of only two countries in the world founded by malcontents who distrust authority. Most countries have long traditions of conformance and obedience. You appear to believe that individual liberty is irrelevant; Let me assure you that the only liberty that is relevant is individual. The other choice is tyranny of the majority, which I reject and abominate. I have no idea what your final sentence means.
Hear hear 👏
In a previous comment on these threads, you stated that "sexual identity is intrinsically used in the service of capitalism, but it is not so much sexual identity that is intrinsically used in the service of capitalism, but rather the defining characteristic, and eventually the dialectic, of sexual identity."
Isn't this simply a crude rhetorical device, a cheap means of pointing out that while not all hookers are transsexuals, some transsexuals are hookers, and that while all VFW commanders are VFW members, some VFW members, commanders and non-commanders alike, might be...hookers...and transsexuals-- but not be BOTH hookers AND transsexuals?
Honey, you’re at a fever pitch...
Great article! Josiah shouldn't be censored at all but he is kidding himself. They aren't trying to protect us, they are trying to protect their profits and their agenda. Josiah is a genius, we need him. and he seems to grasp the foundational American ideal, we need to be free, and that includes being your own doctor.
I think he’s a little naive when he stated “Nobody is trying to kill their population.”
I wish desperately for you to be wrong, and fear desperately that you are correct. The authoritarians are trying to control the population of people of color by encouraging them to hate the police, leading to soaring murder rates for people of color. Each murder is blamed on something that does not actually exist, systemic racism. That doesn't mean that racism does not exist; it is alive and well in the Democratic Party, which thrives on blacks blaming whites and police for their problems, when the plight of today's urban black population was predicted accurately nearly sixty years ago by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the great liberal thinkers of the 20th century. Read the Moynihan Report. LBJ did, and realized that if he could destroy the black nuclear family, and co-opt the self-anointed civil rights leaders by promising them a place at the table.
The "civil rights leaders" have steadily delivered the black vote to Democrats, while staying quiet about the destruction of generation after generation of black youth. Whites are blamed, law enforcement is blamed, while the truth is revealed in literally thousands of sociology studies. When adjusted for number of parents in the youth's home, disparities in education, employment, incarceration, wealth, health, lifespan, whites and blacks have very similar outcomes. There remains a small difference, and I'm willing to ascribe that remainder to racism until we have a better explanation. But it's politically incorrect to point out that the problem is a cultural one, caused cynically by Democrats.
I think you adroitly described the current realities related to the black community and their Democrat party. As for everyone else, I am of the opinion it has been determined, by those in positions of power, that with the world population closing in on 8 billion people, things are becoming unmanageable.
We have all sorts of fiascos taking place, global warming, covid, wars and rumors of war, vaccine mandates, monetary manipulation, supply chain manipulation and food modification, to name a few. A variety of disasters, pick your favorite one.
When you have so many folks it is quite easy to treat them as numbers. And since it has been determined 8 billion is 4 billion (an arbitrary number) too many, different programs are created to trim the fat.
I find this issue real and fascinating. Of course there are those who determine, for whatever reason, it’s a crazy conspiracy theory that they are too intelligent to fall for; and they may be right.
But up until the middle of the play, it was a crazy conspiracy theory that Lincoln shouldn’t go to Ford’s theater.
The lab leak hypothesis was a conspiracy theory until it wasn't. COVID19 was deadly to everybody, but we know better today (although saying it will get you deplatformed immediately). Parler was the means whereby vicious white supremacists mounted a violent insurrection at the Capitol, until proof was found that the "approved" social media platforms were the ones that handled all the communication. And, the white supremacist-led violent insurrection at the Capitol was gospel to the ruling authoritarians until they lost their efforts to suppress video evidence yesterday, when contemporaneous recording of the event showed clearly the authoritarians' claims were pure BS.
Even the "everybody agrees" anthropogenic global warming is suspect. The global climate is arguably the most complex of all complex systems of which humans are a member. Every member of a complex system affects every other member, so we must be affecting the global climate. The first thing I learned about complex systems is to approach them with humility. The AGW enthusiasts approach it with hubris.
"Crazy conspiracy theory" is redundant. Conspiracies never occur. Powerful people never associate and discuss aligned interests leading to coordinated actions. It's axiomatic that people who believe such things are ignorant, delusional, or both.
Now ya tell us ….
How do you determine
iQ And who are any of us to say what is needed in an evolutionary way?
By 'low IQ and feeble,' are you referring to the inbredneck genetic debris at the 'elites' level ruining and running the planet (into the ground)? A genuine question. Cos defo somebody shat in their tiny gene pool quite some time ago.
It's funny how the shit floats to the top.
And add to that the fact that more black babies are aborted than born. https://www.wsj.com/articles/lets-talk-about-the-black-abortion-rate-1531263697
Didn’t know that
I know how to put an end to that. Put the KKK iin charge of all abortion facilities.
Of course a year or two after that happened the KKK would start receiving Congressional Medals of Honor, Kennedy Center awards and of course the not-so-Nobel Peace Prize.
A DIY fecal transplant?! He's a shite supremacist!
I thought it more of a culture appropriation
Good one.
Actually, a really good one! ;-)
I picture him like Herbert West in Re-Animator, pooh-poohing (bum fun pun intended) and harrumphing every parry and jab and thrust at his fascinating home science kit art exhibits. "Laugh at my visionary gut extractions and extrapolations, will they? I WILL HAVE THE LAST SCIENTIFIC LAUGH!!!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey1QV8KKGJk
Bravo
Is it possible that all this internet censoring is just an extension of the "helicopter parenting" mentality? I would guess that many of the people making these decisions are children of that ilk. They grew up under a constant watchful eye, and protected from anything deemed dangerous. When I think of how different that was from my childhood it's striking. Zayner mentions growing up on a farm, which I'd guess, was more like my childhood - in the summer, we kids would head out shortly after waking up, and the parents might only see us once during the day, and just long enough to wolf down a sandwich at lunchtime. Today, your average suburban parent doing that would probably get arrested for child endangerment. Is it possible that those children carried all that fear of the unknown into adulthood and are now in positions of authority to act on it?
Agreed its a malevolent form of it
I'd like to hear your thoughts on what that anti-fragile rationalism would look like. Seems pretty close to what science is supposed to be, but far from what we have now, where there's always an agenda driving everything.
Thanks for turning me on to John Vervaeke. It's strange I hadn't heard of him before, because he's so close to many of my interests and perspectives.
When I first started reading your comment I thought of John Vervaeke and, yep, that's where you were going. I'm on episode 39. Thanks for the tip. His analysis really brings things together. Will it have broad influence? How do these new "socio-cognitive" frameworks proliferate? I hope it's not too late.
Or how about this --- nobody is held accountable for any thing they do any more.
Have a kid? Don't have to make them breakfast, because the school will do that. Commit a crime? No bail necessary, keep the hair extensions, you need them. Create sham corrupt financial instruments for people to invest in? Hoozah! Become a "public servant" and buy a house on Martha's Vinyard? Of course.
We are in the whirlwind. Today Pres. DumbAss said the guys on horses "will pay." Forget the "for what" part and go straight to, "Afghanistan (wag the dog) drone strike kills ten." Who is paying for that?
"How do we ever expect people to be able to make this choice on their own, if we never give them the information, or access to the information and say, “Here, look. Decide based on the data what you want to do.”
Precisely the point. They don't want us to do this, only what the experts decide is right for us
"Affordable DIY Nuclear Reactor Sets for SALE$$$$!!!- Perfect for the Home Hobbyist Nuclear Physicist!"...
Don’t you think you can draw an individual risk vs distributed risk distinction there?
In the case described in the article absolutely. Individual choice, individual risk. My fear is that CRISPR technology is making it too easy for an accidental or intentional plague to eventually afflict us...
Reminiscent of an old Scott Adams cartoon:
Dilbert: "People act like we're a bunch of mad scientists doing crazy and irresponsible experiments! That's just not realistic."
Dogbert: "What are you working on here?"
Dilbert: "Oooh! A skunkappotomous!"
Matt, you are a phenomenon.
Barry James Marshall—Discovery of Helicobacter pylori as a Cause of Peptic Ulcer
He was mocked, shamed, and censored by the elite medical establishment for decades because he figured out that drinking milk and avoiding hot salsa wouldn't help your ulcer. It was always H. Pylori, and antibiotics would fix you right up.
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)30032-5/fulltext
Marshall was unsuccessful in developing an animal model, so he decided to experiment upon himself. In 1984, following a baseline endoscopy which showed a normal gastric mucosa, he drank a culture of the organism. Three days later he developed nausea and achlorhydria. Vomiting occurred and on day 8 a repeat endoscopy and biopsy showed marked gastritis and a positive H. pylori culture. At day 14, a third endoscopy was performed and he then began treatment with antibiotics and bismuth. He recovered promptly and thus had fulfilled Koch’s postulates for the role of H. pylori in gastritis.
YES - H. pylori is a PERFECT example.
A friend's wife was taking stomach acid pills for years. When he suggested a test for H. pylori bacteria her doctor was outraged. But -- she tested positive and -- has been cured -- a doctor and insurance industry "lost" a profitable patient...
Bingo. Cures are way less profitable than ongoing treatment.
Which is seriously a huge problem. Peace isn't profitable either.
People ridicule such explanations as cynical and simplistic. HOWEVER. If we go back to the old tests of "Does it have predictive power?" and "Does it have explanatory power?", we have to confront the reality that wherever it appears malice and greed are driving our medical industries, they are. A rare simple explanation.
I am acquainted with Josiah. I think taking down his Youtube (and every other biohacker) is wrong. No, Josiah is NOT "brilliant". Josiah is a guy who had a kid and had to do something. He has good marketing and sales skills. And he has some amazing journalist contacts. The guy is a mediocre scientist - at best.
That said, Josiah has evolved. I advised him 5 years ago he better stop injecting on stage because at that time he was selling pure bullshit that could not possibly work. He may have been quite aware it could not work. But if someone followed his directions to do this at home using his kit, that person could easily kill themselves. Josiah was pretty ignorant about immunology then. What he has picked up since, I don't know. Josiah stopped injecting on stage - instantly. And he immediately lit into another biohacker who imitated Josiah on stage, injecting himself with something. I presume he did that to differentiate himself for legal reasons.
What I told him was that I knew that a prosecutor and police would brush aside any "not for human use" disclaimers and put him away in that instance. I know this because it happened to a friend, who was then a professor at a major university. This professor give an unapproved medication (such can be oral, injectable, or absorbable), and someone died. If you don't have FDA clinical trial approval - you will get charged with a homicide. The prof was. Lost everything. In that case, I reviewed things and I do not believe the compound caused this death. It was bad luck. There are hundreds of thousands of people per year that have the cause of death in that case. The subject was in the prime age for death from this cause. But, the law looks at it alone and says the odds are tiny of it happening the same day. A jury would agree. Professor took the plea bargain.
There are VERY good reasons why the FDA has this power to regulate Matt. We see this now with people hearing about someone's friend who had, say, a brain bleed within a week of getting vaccinated and immediately thinks the brain bleed must be from vaccination. But, in the USA, there are 16,000 or so of these each year. (Japan has around 25,000 with half US population.) So, if you vaccinate half the USA, there should be around 8,000 brain bleeds in vaccinated people within a year. Divide that by 365 days in a year, and you should have around 22 people that get a brain bleed within 24 hours of vaccination. If you extend that to 7 days, you should have 153 or so.
There are things to criticize about our vaccine campaign. But Josiah is quite an ignoramus, and learning way too much by hard knocks. I am happy to help him, but he is also pretty headstrong, in the Dunning Kreuger sense of the word.
Thanks for the counterpoint! This is why I am here.
Oh, yes. Matt. That other biohacker Josiah attacked publicly for injecting himself (Aaron Traywick) was found dead not long after. It was ruled suicide, but Mr. Traywick had a history of not exactly cricket financial dealings. I am not so sure that Mr. Traywick didn't "have a little accident" in the Soprano's sense of the phrase.
Now, Mr. Traywick injected himself with a herpes vaccine that I know something about. That vaccine was well designed, carefully made, and would be effective. Nothing Josiah has come out with yet is anywhere near as sophisticated. I know that biohacker pretty well, and I can put you in touch with him. Mr. Traywick's stunt was not necessarily what that designer wanted to happen or approved of.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/05/05/011216/biohacker-who-injected-himself-with-diy-herpes-treatment-found-dead
What you wrote was interesting. Can you provide independent proof that you know Josiah and that anything you wrote about him is actually true?
Matt can contact me. I am connected to Josiah on Facebook. I will probably duplicate this post there when TK News rolls it out. That said, what particular fact(s) are you looking for corroboration of? The person prosecuted I will not reveal. That record was expunged.
I can post papers about brain bleeds. But somehow I don't think that is what you want. Josiah's injections on stage are in news stories. I posted a link to Aaron Traywick's death and onstage event.
So I am rather at a loss for what it is that you think I need to provide "independent proof" for.
They're busting your chops. You've put this thing in a nice tight perspective, something that is lacking from Matt's take. Thanx much.
in essence, the clamp down is stopping a lot of innovation. Taibbi is correct in that exploration of "fringe" ideas is where new discoveries come from. Edison tested a great many things before he found a filament that would work in a light bulb. This kind of clamping down does in fact stifle creative innovation. There is also a kind of forceful imposition and maintenance of a rather conservative status quo, a do not step outside these lines. And as the article makes plain, there is a massive assumption that the american people are essential dumb herd animals who cannot reason and so must be protected from themselves. This kind of thinking has never worked out well in history, it won't work out well now.
What is true is that the current system in the US is crumbling, it possesses many flaws that the pandemic made more apparent. American meritocracy is not working and it is not going to work. FUrther the US system is extremely corrupt when it comes both to science and medicine. I hear that sort of thing all the time: the US medicines are the safest (no they aren't but they are the most expensive) and the best (no they aren't but they are the most expensive). zayner put it quite well, other countries can (surprise) do science too! They make good stuff too! other systems and approaches work just as well as ours! the only thing ours has is monopoly control over pricing, that is it, it's why we pay more than any other people on the planet for our medicines.
And so, there is medical tourism, traveling to other countries for procedures. the elderly in my town regularly travel to mexico on a bus to buy their medicines, for about a third of what they pay here. people in this country have died because they can't afford insulin (a patent free medicine) or epipens (people are now making their own). the system itself is forcing innovation on all of us and it will try (and ultimately fail) to force us to stop.
The medicine that i needed to save my life costs one million dollars in the US, in Russia it was 12,000 dollars. it is kind of like that old jack benny joke: your money or your life, well, i will take my life and my money. and i don't really care what the FDA or the medical industry thinks i should do, not any longer. and i am not alone in that, not even close.
Are you saying that American meritocracy isn't working because existing systems/institutions are stifling innovators?
"Instead, it just becomes a system where you have to trust the experts and you have to trust the government. I’m like, who trusts the government? Let’s be honest. It doesn’t matter what political party you are part of. Come on!"
Most (I believe) would agree with Josiah's statement above. That said, how can someone then trust the government enough to allow an experimental vaccine to be injected into their body to save them from a virus with a mortality rate well below 1%? Governments lie when the truth fits better - but we're supposed to believe that "this time" we can trust them?? Nah....