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Showing posts from July, 2023
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A  NATURAL  LIFE   There is one question that I am asked every day by a patient in my practice. It is always the same question and even though it is never the same questionner the gist is always the same.   “Is there a natural herb or substance that I can take to make……” and you can insert your preferred statement after the dashes…. “my hair grow…. my cholesterol low …. my pounds fall …. my waist small …. my acne go …. my palpitation slow… my libido glow”. Behind this question is an unstated assumption that all things natural are better than any other medicine that may come in a bottle. Like all things in life this assumption has some truth and some falsehood buried in it. The problem is not whether some natural products may be beneficial. The problem is the expectation that they are always beneficial independent of context and perspective. Cobra venom is 100% natural and 100% fatal in its pure unmodified form. Yet snake venom has been the source of many wonderful drugs that has
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  The Myth of “TRY”   All my life I have been told a phrase that I never ever examined closely. “Always try to do your best” my parents and teachers would exhort me. “Don’t worry about the results”, they would say…. “If you tried your best, then you have nothing to be ashamed about, even if you did not succeed”.   And so I spent my life striving, failing and succeeding…. But….. always “trying” ! Then one day, about 6 years ago, I was sitting and watching a movie with my son. It was “The Karate Kid”, a movie about a lightweight mild-mannered boy who is taught by an old Japanese-American World War II veteran about Karate and life. The movie is an all-time favorite of mine and my son simply loved it.   There is a scene where the boy, Daniel LaRusso arrives at the older, Mr. Miyagi’s house for his first karate lesson. The conversation goes like this….   Mr. Kesuke Miyagi : Now, ready? Daniel LaRusso : Yeah, I guess so. Mr, Kesuke Miyagi : [sighs] Daniel-san, must talk. [
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THE HAND THAT OPENED PANDORA'S BOX The pandemic with its imminent threat towards existence and survival is a fast receding echo of a nightmare that most would prefer to forget. Yet we are left with the lingering vestiges of those times in the form of Long COVID. In my new book, The Reaper's Dance: 1000 Days of COVID, I explain the evidence that strongly pointed to the possibility of the pandemic origin being the result of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a result of a lapse in biosafety/biosecurity protocols in a lab that was working with chimeric engineered Bat Coronaviruses with capabilities for infecting mice carrying the human ACE2 receptor. Since my analysis in Jan-Feb 2023, multiple agencies have now come out with a series of tangential observations and restrictive policy decisions aimed at severely curtailing all work on Pathogens of Pandemic Potential except under multiple levels of regulatory oversight. Today the  Biden administration has  suspended t