Do The COVID Vaccines Affect Your Ability to Think?
Examining some of the common neurological injuries caused by vaccination
A Midwestern Doctor
Jul 20, 2023
694
623
40
Share
Cross-posted by
The Forgotten Side of Medicine
"I unfortunately cross posted the wrong AMD article yesterday. Take 2:

In my practice of treating vaccine injuries, one of the three most common symptoms I see is brain fog. So many of my patients had been in the prime of their lives, can now barely function, have significant cognitive impairment and need a lot of help from our nurses to carry out their treatment plans.

I never imagined I would see any of this in people far younger than me and instead I see it every day.

AMD did an excellent job illustrating the suffering I bear witness to on a daily basis, where it comes from, and most importantly, what needs to be looked at to treat it.

You need to read this article and take the time go review the heartbreaking comments on it from everyone else who has been through this too."
-
Pierre Kory, MD, MPA
Story at a Glance:
•Subtle and overt neurological injuries are one of the most common results of a pharmaceutical injury.
•The COVID-19 vaccines excel at causing damage to cognition, and many of us have noticed both subtle and over cognitive impairment following vaccination that relatively few people know how to address.
•For a long time, the hypothesis that the vaccines impaired cognition was “anecdotal” because it was based on individuals observing it in their peer group or patients.  Recently large datasets emerged which show this phenomenon is very real.
When the COVID-19 vaccines were brought to market, due to their design I expected them to have safety issues, and I expected over the long term, a variety of chronic issues would be linked to them.  This was because there were a variety of reasons to suspect they would cause autoimmune disorders, fertility issues and cancers—but for some reason (as shown by
the Pfizer EMA leaks
), the vaccines had been exempted from being appropriately tested for any of these issues prior to being given to humans.
Since all new drugs are required to receive that testing, I interpreted it to be a tacit admission it was known major issues would emerge in these areas, and that a decision was made that it was better to just not officially test any of them so there would be no data to show Pfizer knew the problems would develop.  Sadly, since the time the vaccines entered the market, those three issues (especially autoimmunity) have become some of the most common severe events associated with the vaccines.
The Forgotten Side of Medicine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
At the start of the vaccine rollout, there were four red flags to me:
•The early advertising campaigns for the vaccines mentioned that you would feel awful when you got the vaccine, but that was fine and a sign the vaccine was working.  Even with vaccines that had a very high rate of adverse events (e.g.,
the HPV vaccine
), had I never seen this mentioned.  This signified it was likely the adverse event rate with the spike protein vaccines would be much higher than normal.
•Many of my colleagues who got the vaccine (since they were healthcare workers they were able to get it first) posted on social media about just how awful they felt after getting the vaccine.  This was also something I had never seen with a previous vaccine.  After some digging, I noticed those with the worse vaccine reactions typically had already had COVID and had their reaction was to the second shot rather than the first, signifying that some type of increased sensitization was occurring from repeated exposures to the spike protein.  Likewise,
the published clinical trial
about Pfizer’s vaccine also showed adverse reactions were dramatically higher with the second rather than first shot.
•Once it became available to the general public, I immediately had patients start showing up with vaccine reactions, many of whom stated they received their flu shot each year and never had experienced something similar with a previous vaccination.  One of the most concerning things were the pre-exacerbation of autoimmune diseases (e.g., spots in their body they previously would occasionally have arthritis in all felt like they were on fire).  After I started looking into this I realized people were seeing between a 15-25% rate of new autoimmune disorders or exacerbations of existing autoimmune disorders developing after the vaccine (
later shown in an Israeli survey
), a massive increase I had never seen any previous vaccine cause.
•About a month after the vaccines were available to the public, I started having friends and patients share that they’d known someone who had unexpectedly died suddenly after receiving the vaccine (typically from a heart attack, stroke, or a sudden aggressive case of COVID-19).
This was extremely concerning to me, because reactions to a toxin typically distribute on a bell curve, with the severe ones being much rarer than the moderate ones.  This meant that if that many severe reactions were occurring, what I could already see was only the tip of the iceberg and far, far more less obvious reactions were going to be happening, to the point it was likely many people I knew would end up experiencing complications from the vaccine.
I tried to warn my colleagues about the dangers of this vaccine, but even when I pointed out Pfizer’s own trial admitted the vaccine was more likely to harm than help you, no one would listen to me.  Not being sure what else to do, but not be willing to do nothing, I decided
to start documenting
all the severe reactions I came across so I could have some type of “proof” to show my colleagues.
This was something that was extremely important at the time since no one was willing to take on the personal risk of publishing that something went against the narrative (that vaccines were killing people) in the peer reviewed literature.  Shortly after
Steve Kirsch
kindly helped launched my Substack, I decided
to post the log I’d put together
, and since there was a critical need for that information, the post went viral and created much of the initial reader base that made my substack possible.
It was immensely time consuming to do the project (especially the verification of the story that was reported to me), so I ended the project after a year.
During that time
, I came across 45 cases of either a death (these comprised the majority of the 45 cases), something I expected to be fatal later on (e.g., a metastatic cancer) or a permanent and total disability.  Additionally, in line with the previously described bell curve, I also came across many more serious but not quite as severe injuries.
Patterns of Vaccine Injury
I’ve had a long term interest in studying pharmaceutical injuries because many of my friends and relatives have had bad reactions to pharmaceuticals.  In most of these cases, ample data existed to show that reaction could happen (often to the degree it strongly argued against the pharmaceutical remaining on the market) and yet almost no one in the medical field was aware of those dangers, hence leading to my injured friends never being warned before they took the pharmaceutical or even while the injury was occurring.
My bell curve theory originally came about from examining all of their cases.  I thus was interested to know if the distribution of adverse events from the spike protein vaccines would match what I had observed with previous dangerous pharmaceuticals and if what I saw personally did or did not match what everyone was reporting online.
One of the things that immediately jumped out at me were the multiple cases of a friend’s parent in a nursing home receiving the vaccine, immediately undergoing a rapid cognitive decline which was “diagnosed” as Alzheimer’s disease and then dying not long after.  At the time, I assumed these were most likely due to undiagnosed ischemic strokes as that was the most plausible mechanism to describe what I’d heard, but I was not certain as I could never examine any of these individuals for signs a stroke had indeed happened.
Note: despite many deaths in the nursing home population due to COVID and the vaccines, the number of people awaiting admission to a nursing home has significantly increased (shown
by this large data set from the Netherlands
).  Given that individuals typically do not want to go to a nursing home unless they are no longe able to take care of themselves, this suggests that
something
new is causing the rapid development of debilitating cognitive impairment (e.g., dementia) in the adult population.  Likewise, as Ed Dowd
has repeatedly documented
, there has been a large increase in physical and cognitive disability throughout the adult population which has significantly impacted the economy because of how many workers are being lost to vaccine injuries.
Most recently, Steve Kirsch was contacted by a whistleblower who reported there has been
a 25 fold increase
in sudden dementia at the nursing home where she works.  Similarly, like the cases shared with me, Kirsch has noted that he has frequently been contacted by relatives who reported a sudden onset of dementia in their beloved relative which was then swept under the rug.  Furthermore, he has also collected numerous other forms of evidence corroborating this is indeed happening.  These cases are really sad because the elders in nursing homes have very little ability to advocate for themselves, and most people will just write the cases off as “normal Alzheimers,” rather than seeing the red flag staring them in the face.
These cases were very concerning to me, as they signified (per the bell curve) that there was going to be a much larger portion of people who would develop less severe (but nonetheless impactful) cognitive decline following vaccination.
Note: one of the most common types of injuries from pharmaceuticals are neurological injuries which both impair cognitive function and create psychiatric symptoms.  This places patients in a difficult situation of
being gaslighted
by the medical system.  This is because their doctors assume the psychiatric symptoms the patients are experiencing are the cause of their illness rather than a symptom of it, leading to the patient being told the illness is all in their head and continually referred for psychiatric help.  One of the best examples with this occurred as a result of the abnormal heart rhythms (e.g., rapid anxiety provoking palpitations) caused by the vaccine damaging the heart which were consistently diagnosed as being a result of anxiety, even when a subsequent workup I requested showed heart damage was present.
As I began seeing more and more signs of cognitive impairment following vaccination, I realized that what I observed mirrored what I previously seen with chronic inflammatory conditions such as mold toxicity,
HPV vaccine injuries
, and lyme disease.  Some of the examples included:
•Many people reported having a “COVID” brain where it was just harder for them to think and remember things.  I sometimes saw this after more severe cases of COVID, more frequently after vaccination, and repeatedly in patients who per their timeline clearly developed it from the vaccine but believed it had come from COVID.
•These issues tended to be more likely to affect older adults, but younger ones were more likely to notice (and complain) about them.  In the case of older adults, I typically learned about them from someone else who had observed the cognitive decline rather than directly from the individual.
•I saw cases of vaccine injured individuals who had trouble remembering or recalling the word they knew expressed what they were trying to communicate (this is also a common mold toxicity symptom).
•I had friends and patients who told me their brain just didn’t work the same since they’d received the vaccine.  As an example, a few colleagues told me they started losing the ability to remember basic things they needed to practice medicine (e.g., medication dosages for prescriptions).  They shared that they were very worried they would need to take an early retirement and that they thought it came from the vaccine but there was no one they could talk to about it (which understandably created a lot of doubt and anxiety).
•I saw cases of coworkers demonstrating noticeable (and permanent) cognitive impairment after I’d assumed they’d received the vaccine.  Their impairment was never mentioned or addressed (rather the physician kept on working, did not perform as well, and in some cases retired).
•I met significantly injured vaccine injured patients who told me one of the primary symptoms was a loss of cognitive functioning they had taken for granted throughout their life.  In many cases following treatment of their vaccine injury, their cognition also improved.
•Colleagues who treated vaccine injured patients told me cognitive impairment was one of the common symptoms they saw and was particularly noteworthy because they had never seen anything like that happen to young adults. To quote Pierre Kory:
In my practice of treating vaccine injuries, one of the three most common symptoms I see is brain fog. So many of my patients had been in the prime of their lives, can now barely function, have significant cognitive impairment and need a lot of help from our nurses to carry out their treatment plans. I never imagined I would see any of this in people far younger than me and instead I see it every day. I bear witness to an immense amount of suffering on a daily basis that is hard to put into words.
•One of my friends (a very smart immunologist) developed complications from the first two vaccines and based on their symptoms was able to describe exactly which parts of their immune systems were becoming dysregulated.  Against my advice, they took a booster and reported they suffered a significant cognitive impairment never experienced before in their lifetime.  I feel this case was important to share as it illustrates how an exacerbation of a vaccine injury can also cause an exacerbation of cognitive symptoms.
Note: I also saw significant cognitive impairment occur in individuals who were acutely ill with COVID-19.  This was not as unusual since delirium is a well known complication in patients hospitalized with a systemic illness (e.g., sepsis), but it seemed to happen more frequently than ususual.
Evidence of Cognitive Impairment
At the same time I was observing these effects, many rumors were also swirling around online that the vaccines would cause severe cognitive impairment and that we would witness a zombie apocalypse from the vaccine injuries.
This apocalypse of course never happened, but many observed a suspicion cognitive impairment was occurring.  For example to quote
Igor’s recent article
:
I own a small business and deal with many people and other small businesses. Most provided reliable service, would remember appointments, followed up on issues, and so on. I noticed that
lately, some people have become less capable cognitively
. They forget essential appointments, cannot concentrate, make crazy-stupid mistakes, and so on.
In my own case, the most evident change I noticed was a worsening of drivers around me and had a few near misses from impaired driving.
The challenge with these situations is that it’s very hard to tell if something is actually happening or your perception is simply a product of confirmation bias.  For this reason, while I was comfortable asserting my belief the COVID-19 vaccines were causing the severe injuries on either end of the bell curve, I avoided doing so for many of the less impactful injuries in the middle where it was much more ambiguous if what I was observing was “real” or simply my own biased perception of the events around me.  Because of this, amongst other things, I never mentioned the changes in driving I observed.
Note: after I posted
the original article
many of the readers stated they too had observed a significant worsening in the behavior of drivers around them.  I was then pointed to this dataset, which
suggests
this issue was happening, but
is difficult to properly assess
because COVID-19 can also cause cognitive impairment and less people were driving in 2020.
Typically, when we have situations like this, large bodies of data or scientific studies are needed to tease out if a correlation is in fact occurring.  Unfortunately, since there are political repercussions for dissenting from the dominant narrative, data which threatens tends not to be published.  This creates the challenging situation where those who are looking for answers on a topic which challenges a vested interest have to look quite carefully for clues on the subject (e.g., by dissecting papers to see exactly what the data is actually showing).
Igor periodically finds those, and after I saw the most recent one he unearthed, I requested to write the original guest post.  To quote his discovery from the Netherlands:
Primary care data for January to March 2023 showed that adults visited their GP more frequently for a number of symptoms compared to the same period in 2019. Memory and concentration problems were significantly more common than last year and in the period before COVID-19. Where these symptoms are concerned, the difference compared to 2019
is growing steadily in each quarter
.
In the first quarter of 2023, there was a 24% increase in GP [general practioner] visits related to memory and concentration problems among adults (age 25 years and older) compared to the same period in 2020. This is evidenced by the latest quarterly research update from the
GOR Network
. The increase in memory and concentration problems of adults
seems to be a longer-term effect of the coronavirus measures
as well as SARS-CoV-2 infections.
More specifically they found:
•No increase was observed in adults under 25 years old.
•A 31% increase was observed in those 24-44 years old.
•A 40% increase was observed in those 45-74 years old.
•A 18% increase was observed in those over 75 years old.
Note: previous rounds of this survey, in addition to the cognitive issues described above, worsening mental health (e.g, anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts), sleep problems, tiredness, and cardiovascular issues (e.g., shortness of breath, dizziness or heart palpitation) were also observed to have significantly increased since 2019.
Typically, patients, less than 75 years old are unlikely to visit their doctors for cognitive issues.  Taken in context with this data, it means there is a stronger case that the (massive) increases in those under 75 were caused by
something
that happened after 2019.  Additionally, since there were already a large number of visits for cognitive impairment in the elderly, the lower percentage increase is slightly misleading in quantifying the extent to which everyone was affected.  For example to quote
the previous report
:
Primary care data showed that adults visited their GP somewhat more frequently for sleep problems in October–December 2022 than in the same period in 2019. This was particularly striking in the oldest age group (75 years and older).
All of this data put health officials in a bit of an awkward situation since publishing data demonstrating large scale cognitive impairment directly undermines the narrative they previous had committed themselves to.  Nonetheless, the authors of the report were significantly more candid than many other before them:
The source of this increase in memory and concentration problems is unclear. A possible explanation could be that COVID-19 measures
caused accelerated cognitive decline
among people who were starting to have problems with memory and concentration (66 years on average).
COVID-19 was of course cited as a potential cause (which, as discussed above can
sometimes
cause long term cognitive impairment):
A
supplementary explanation
could be that some of these people have long-term symptoms after COVID-19. Various studies have shown that memory and concentration problems are common in post-COVID symptoms. Other infectious diseases, such as flu, can also cause these symptoms. However,
recent studies
have shown that long-term memory and concentration problems are much more common after COVID-19 than after flu. In addition, these symptoms are more common in older age groups. The figures provided by GPs are consistent with this expectation.
Fortunately, the authors acknowledged that long COVID could not be the primary explanation for what was occurring, and instead alluded to the elephant in the room—the vaccines.
Note: on VAERS, in the 23 years VAERS has operated, 2352 of the 3071 (76.6%) reports of memory impairment following vaccination came from the COVID-19 vaccines.  Additionally, Ed Dowd has identified
numerous government datasets
demonstrating that widespread impairment and disability has occurred since the vaccine rollout.
Why Are The Vaccines Causing Cognitive Impairment?
My specific interest in studying spike protein vaccine toxicity arose because I suspected I would see many similarities to other pharmaceutical injuries I had observed previously and treatments that had developed for those injuries could be used to treat COVID-19 vaccine injuries.  On Substack, I’ve tried to focus on explaining the areas that I believe are the most important to understanding this, zeta-potential, the cell danger response (CDR) and the treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
Note: Each of these is interrelated with and often causes the others.
Zeta Potential:
Zeta potential (explained in detail
here
) governs if fluid in the body clumps together (e.g., forming a clot) or remains dispersed and capable of freely flowing.  Additionally, it also influences if proteins will stay in their correct formation or misfold and clump together.  Many different issues (discussed
here
) emerge when fluid circulation (be it blood, lymph, interstitial fluid or cerebrospinal fluid) becomes impaired.  Since the spike protein is uniquely suited for impairing zeta potential, we have found
restoring zeta potential
(discussed
here
) often is immensely helpful during COVID-19 infections and for treating COVID-19 vaccine injuries.  Many of those approaches were initially developed from working with other vaccine injuries and cognitive decline in the elderly.
Cell Danger Response (CDR):
When cells are exposed to a threat, their mitochondria shift from producing energy for the cell to a protective mode where the cell’s metabolism and internal growth shuts down, the mitochondria release reactive oxygen species to kill potential invaders, the cell warns other cells to enter the CDR and the cell seals off and disconnects itself from the body.  The CDR (explained further
here
) is an essential process for cellular survival, but frequently in chronic illness, cells become stuck in it rather than allowing the healing response to complete.
Understanding the CDR is extremely important when working with complex illnesses because it explains why triggers from long ago can cause an inexplicable illness, and why many treatments that seem appropriate (specifically those that treat a symptom of the CDR rather than the cause of it) either don’t help or worsen the patient’s conditions.  Many of the most challenging patients seen by integrative practitioners are those trapped within the CDR, but unfortunately, there is still very little knowledge of this phenomena.
My interest was drawn back to the CDR after I realized that
one of the most effective treatments
for long COVID and COVID-19 vaccine injuries was one that directly treated the CDR.  Since many of the therapies that have been developed to revive nonfunctional tissue was developed by the regenerative medical field, I wrote an article describing how these approaches are applied to restore localized regions of dysfunctional tissue (which is sometimes needed to treat vaccine injuries) and another on the regenerative treatments
that treat systemic CDRs
(and are more frequently needed for vaccine injuries).
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD):
AD is one of the most devastating and costly conditions in existence (e.g., for the year of 2020
it was estimated
to have cost America 305 billion dollars) and as a result, billions of dollars are spent each year in researching a cure for it.
This research (which began in 1906) has gone nowhere
and presently
the FDA is working with the drug industry
to push forward ineffective, quite dangerous but highly profitable treatments for AD.
However,
effective treatments do exist
for AD and my colleagues have developed a few different methods that have successfully treated the condition.  Additionally, one neurologist, Dale Bresden developed a method for reversing AD that he proved worked
in mulitiple publications
(included
a recent 2022 clinical trial
).
All of these successful approaches utilize the following principles:
•Restore both the blood flow to the brain and the lymphatic drainage from it (which removes amyloid plaques).  This often requires
restoring the physiologic zeta potential
and
having a healthy sleep cycle
.
•Treating the CDR (which causes chronic inflammation)
and reactivating brain cells
that became trapped in an unresolved CDR (which amongst other things requires reclaiming a healthy sleep cycle).
Note: Bresden’s approach also emphasizes the importance of addressing chronically elevated blood sugar or insulin levels.
One of the most important things to recognize about AD is that it is a slowly worsening disease which often progresses over decades.  In the early stages of AD, minor cognitive changes occur, which (when possible to autopsy) correlate with tissue changes within the brain.  In rare instances, individuals can instead have a rapidly progressing form of Alzheimer's which strikes with a younger age and is often linked to the toxin exposure.
In the case of  spike proteins illnesses, I have seen both the early signs of AD cognitive decline occurring in much younger patients, and exist in cases of AD rapidly progressing following COVID vaccination.  Additionally, I have also seen cases of rapid cognitive decline in the elderly following the administration of other vaccinations—however they were far less frequent than those seen with the COVID-19 vaccines.
Conclusion
Anytime you attempt to perceive the world around you, you are always biased by the pre-existing filters you have which prevent you from seeing much of the world around you (discussed further
here
).  To some extent, these filters are a necessary evil as without them, the world would be overwhelmingly complicated.  However, if you cannot be open to the possibility a biased filter this is clouding your perception of reality, you become blind to a great deal of important things around you.
Misleading filters
for example, explain why many of those committed to the narrative cannot see the overwhelming evidence of COVID-19 vaccine injuries around them.
One of the most commonly used filters is "
social proof
," which essentially says people will typically not act on something, believe it, or even see it unless their peers (the herd) already are.  This creates a problem, because frequently when you need to know something, the herd does not yet believe it, forcing you to either make a decision no one else supports (which can be quite terrifying) or to wait until there is safety in doing it because the herd has now moved in that direction (which is often too late).
As I’ve gotten to know those who challenged the COVID-19 narrative, I’ve noticed they all had a tendency they’d learned through life experience to not follow the crowd and be willing to act on their initial impression of what preliminary data suggested before the rest of the crowd caught on.  For example, Ed Dowd was a highly successful stock trader (e.g., he made Blackrock a lot of money) and his method boiled down to spotting early trends before anyone else and acting on them while they were still profitable to investors.
Like many, from the start of the vaccination campaign, based on the preliminary data points that were available, I suspected it was going to cause long-term cognitive issues.  Now that the data which supports that trend is beginning to appear, and concerningly the issue appears to be gradually worsening, something commonly observed over time with factors that give rise to dementia.  This is an important issue and I want to extend my thanks to
Igor
for drawing attention to this very important dataset.
Note: This article (which has since been revised) was originally posted as a guest post on
Igor Chudov’s substack
.  Igor was one of the original authors who helped me get started here and consistently posts on target articles I make a point to read.
The Forgotten Side of Medicine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This post is public so feel free to share it.
Share
694
623
40
Share


The Perils of Dealing in Absolutes

My colleague, “A Midwestern Doctor,” has been on fire lately. When we connected to talk about one of the most significant developments in vaccine safety in years, I realized several of the points AMD raised were especially relevant right now. I asked if we could turn the conversation into an interview. AMD agreed. Since so much of the interview touched on various aspects of their work, I hyperlinked to their relevant posts within those conversations.PK: I know you’ve been buried, so thanks for making the time. A lot of people need to hear this. Also, congrats on the Tucker Carlson plug. He called you “kind of a genius and a very decent person”and put your work in front of his massive audience. When I first started helping you a few years ago because I loved the newsletter, I had a sense you’d add something real. I just never expected it to go this far. How has it been?AMD:That was very kind of Tucker. Before I saw that, I always wondered if he read this newsletter, because after I put together an extensive case for the evidence thatSSRI antidepressants can contribute to mass shootings(something I did because it seemed like the one viable way to draw real attention to the broader,more common debilitating harms of SSRIs), it went viral, andhe then aired a Fox segment on the topicthat to the best of my knowledge was the first time major media had seriously touched the issue in decades. Afterward, the Overton window opened; the serious dangers of SSRIs stopped being taboo, and people also began discussing the far morefrequent side effectsthat have ruined a lot of lives.Nowfederal policies are being enactedthat are causing the psychiatric profession to begrudgingly move toward (safely) deprescribing SSRIs.I appreciate the endorsement, but I appreciate even more that he was willing to take the risk of raising the subject when it still carried real cost.PK: Tell me about that Obi-Wan line we talked about the other night, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”AMD:When you told me that, it jumped out at me because it seemed to touch on the mental rigidity I see everywhere, which has always bothered me and, I feel, is the root cause of many problems that come up. I looked up the context behind the quote thatI put into the tweet you saw, and found out that what it essentially means is that as people’s minds harden and they “go to the dark side,” they begin seeing everything in black and white, so that anyone who is not fully with them must be against them.ED: Obi-Wan said the line to a student he deeply cared about who had begun taking Obi-Wan’s disagreements with his actions as proof Obi-Wan was his enemy.On a broad level, this is the societal shift which typically precedes democracies hardening into totalitarian states, like with Bush’s post 9/11 “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” Yet, on an individual level, it frequently sends people like Obi-Wan’s student down a chain of distorted, dichotomous logic that makes them rigidly adopt positions at odds with the values they originally held. Interestingly, the statement itself is an absolute, which is useful because it shows how easily even people who criticize black-and-white thinking can slip into it.PK: I see that constantly, and also have to admit that in some areas, although I believe there are not many of them, I too can slip into that posture as well. Where does it come from?AMD:What I found the most interesting about the quote was learning that it touched upon why the Sith (ED: “evil Jedi”) worldview was so tempting in the first place. The appeal was never simply power for its own sake; it was that power and domination offered a way to eliminate uncertainty, which is something many people, including Obi-Wan’s student, simply cannot tolerate.PK: Have you researched that aspect of cognition?AMD:Actually, I did and found a substantial body of research on “intolerance of uncertainty” that describes essentially the same pattern and showsit frequently underlies emotional disorders like anxiety. The rigidity we notice is usually the visible surface; underneath it, there is often an intolerance of uncertainty that feeds the drive for control and is, in turn, reinforced by it—until the whole stance hardens into dogmatism.PK: Man, you just hit on something I thought about for years running an ICU as Director and Chief of 17 intensivists. When I compared my practice to my colleagues, I felt strongly that what separated us in the ICU wasn't intelligence, knowledge, or experience; it was our tolerance of risk, but also what I started to call "comfort with the unknowable," or, as you put it, comfort with uncertainty. That's because we were constantly in situations where you had to make decisions based on incomplete or unobtainable data.AMD: To that point, I’ve always been drawn to puzzles predicated on incomplete or unknown information because of the type of branching and expansive thinking that is required for them.  Has that been your experience?PK: Yes. I remember one day a nurse pointed out to me that I ordered far fewer tests and consults than any of my partners, and she was right. It sent me down a detailed 18-month analysis using multiple databases, which let me detail the actions of every intensivist on my service and compare how much each one tested and treated against how their patients actually did, using observed versus expected ICU mortality derived from ICU APACHE scores. The bottom line: no correlation. Heavy testers searching for certainty landed all over the performance (err, survival) rankings, and I was the outlier — second from the top in patient survival while ordering by far the fewest tests. (I explore why in the full analysis here.)AMD: That parallels my longstanding experience that the best integrative physicians I’ve worked with ordered far less labs than their colleagues.But the deeper point is yours: the testing reflected each doctor's discomfort with uncertainty, and like any other human characteristic, fell along a bell curve, with very few able to tolerate uncertainty very much (except moi, of course, sorry not sorry).AMD:It also describes doctors' dogmatic behavior and their tendency to distill complex topics into simple declarations that ignore much of what’s going on with each patient. On a deeper level, though, I think it’s the same dynamic underlying many of the ways our society has gone astray, as our entire mode of science and medicine revolves around dominating and rigidly defining nature rather than working in harmony with it, which effectively is an exercise in futility to force certainty onto a world that can never yield any more than the illusion of it from within an artificial model.PK: That’s one of my favorite points. Everything runs on protocols and algorithms, but every patient is different.Each week that I would take over the ICU, I would give my team which consisted of 1 fellow 6 residents, 2 students, a rundown of what to expect from me, and what I told them was: “This week, when I ask you a question, if you don’t know the answer, you can get out of it by saying, “It depends.” The problem is you will then have to tell me what variables it depends on, why that variable matters, and what the consequences are of doing or not doing that intervention in that situation. They actually loved doing that exercise at the bedside TBH. Man, you bring back memories of my teaching days.AMD:That’s wonderful; I would have enjoyed rounding on your team when I was in training. One of the things that has always alienated me is that I find certainty “boring,” and a big part of what drew me into becoming a doctor was knowing the sheer complexity of the body guaranteed I was signing up for a lifetime of uncertainty, challenges, and discoveries with each patient. So in my style of medicine, while there are certain principles I prioritize for restoring health, how I approach patients, even those with similar ailments, often varies immensely.PK: How do you reconcile that with you having to send the same email to hundreds of thousands of people at once?AMD:It’s one of the biggest challenges I face, as nothing exists that works for everyone or that can be applied and dosed in the same way. At the same time, I have the opportunity to help a lot of people, so I need to do something, and I’ve hence adopted the position of minimally discussing the therapies I use that are too variable while simultaneously trying to provide as pertinent detail as possible for the ones that are less specific to the individual.PK: Like DMSO?AMD:Yes—although it’s not the only one. The huge upside to DMSO is that it works for a very wide range of conditions, and while some knowledge and creativity is needed for its applications to address certain diseases, since it spreads through the body, even if it’s applied in a suboptimal way, it often still works. More importantly, it costs almost nothing so if it doesn’t work, it’s no real loss, and its toxicity is minimal, so while reactions do happen, most are either manageable or easily avoidable. However, even with that and my exhaustive efforts to supply the correct information on how to use it, people have issues from using it incorrectly, it still doesn’t work for everyone (e.g., readers have reported a 40-50% tinnitus improvement, 80-85% with pain, and likely over 90% with burns) and the less than satisfactory outcomes they share constantly weigh on me.PK: Don’t be too hard on yourself. The results I’ve seen are beyond what I would have thought possible for any therapy a few years ago. That’s why I’ve promoted it and why at our Leading Edge Clinic, we are running a tinnitus trial that now has some encouraging early signals.AMD:Tinnitus also illustrates a broader limitation in the usual model. To facilitate scalability, it revolves around diagnosing ailments by describing symptoms in Latin and then giving agents that counteract those symptoms. One issue is that different diseases with shared symptoms are treated as the same entity, so a treatment that addresses only a subset of causes becomes the standard of care and doesn’t help the remaining cases. Using tinnitus as an example, it has many different causes (which somewhat correlate with the different sounds people hear), and systems that successfully treat it typically consider multiple potential root causes rather than a single approach. Likewise, while DMSO addresses the root causes of some types of tinnitus, it either can’t address others, or it only works if a protocol is tailored to the specific condition present.PK: That matches what we’re seeing. Safety, range, and cost like this are rare. Not that I don’t know the answer, but I will ask the obvious question anyway: “Why hasn’t DMSO been pushed harder?AMD:Originally, it was because the FDA and other parts of the medical industrywent to great lengths to blacklist the therapy, like when they intimidated scientists researching it. Once they lost the power to do that due toa 1994 lawremoving the FDA’s jurisdiction over natural supplements, the health climate changed and increasingly revolved around marketing supplements. The major challenge with DMSO is that since a single bottle of it costs virtually nothing and lasts for months if not longer, no one has any incentive to market it and it got crowded out by everything else being promoted (resulting in it just being a therapy whose discussion was restricted to smaller alternative health communities where users were collaborating to find the best solutions to their ailments). The thing I found the most amazing about the whole thing is that while I knew buried DMSO research existed, I had no idea much was out there virtually no one knows about that addressed a wide range of challenging diseases no good options exist for currently.PK: Following your work as closely as I have, that was one of the most amazing things I learned, which was the insane amount of published research, not only in English, but in other languages as well; it was mind-boggling. So, tell me, how much published research on DMSO exists?AMD:I spent about five months going day in and day out to try to collect every medically relevant DMSO paper that existed, and while I tried to be thorough, I’m  sure I missed some of it. When I ran it through AI for a count, I had about 15,000 pertinent papers. I’m currently doing the medical ozone project, and I know there are thousands, but I do not expect to reach the 15,000 mark.PK: That’s a massive undertaking. How are you managing it?AMD:I’ve long been a pragmatist because I’ve had too many bad experiences sinking a lot of time into things I cared about that just couldn’t go anywhere. At the same time, I draw a clear delineation between “difficult” and “impossible,” and when I started this specific project, what needed to be done looked incredibly daunting, but didn’t feel “impossible,” so I just had faith I’d somehow figure out how to do it along the way. That happened, and the ozone project, which I thought would be much harder than DMSO because there are even more studies, is actually going much faster; in hindsight, I wish I’d known a lot of what I know now when I did the DMSO search. For example, recently when facing a really time-consuming research task, I queried a few AIs to see if a better option existed, and after the initial approaches failed, eventually found out a custom Python program was the ideal solution (which I then revised a few times). Before that moment, I had no knowledge of programming, but since I have a good enough grasp of logic, I can get AIs to write and debug Python programs for me, which makes so many of the tasks I had to do much simpler. So if you’d asked me a year ago, I never would have agreed I’d need to “learn to code,” but now that I somewhat have, it’s completely changed my life.PK: I actually don’t think I can give an insightful answer to this question in regards to my own pace and commitment to work because I seemingly do it without planning or forethought, so I will ask you: What keeps you putting in this level of effort?AMD:Helping others has always been one of the core values I navigate the world through, but I kept running into this: once I got involved in something my heart was called to, I often became entangled in something that ate up a lot of my time and didn’t feel like it helped people. A big part of wanting to be a doctor was just that I knew I could spend a lot less time to make a much bigger impact on a lot of people’s lives than people I’d tried to help in the past. However, I never dreamed I’d get the chance to help as many people as I do now, and while this newsletter is a lot of work, if you instead look at it as the ratio of how much effort I put in to the impact it makes for each person, it’s incomparable to everything I did before and something I never could have even conceived was possible.The entire reason I put so much effort into it is that I want the results that actually help people, and we currently have a window to reach many people who were never open to these issues before, so I feel I need to help create the stable non-polarized foundation that can actually shift how they see things.I also had a long period where I was immersed in the alternative media (and the attached communities), and while I found it enlightening, I gradually became more and more frustrated with the fact that a lot of the people there wanted to point out how bad things were, but never would offer productive solutions to make things better. On one hand, I get the helplessness, because it does really feel like the world is against you, like when you have a vaccine injury, but that helpless stance wasn’t acceptable to me, and now that I have a real opportunity to make things better, I feel I have to take it.PK: What do you think drives the black-pilled stance? ED: To those not in the know,black-pilled means having become deeply pessimistic or fatalistic—convinced that a problem is so entrenched that meaningful improvement is unlikely or impossible.AMD:It’s often thought to function as a way to eliminate uncertainty; if everything is already as bad as it can be, you cannot be disappointed later. Sometimes it is mixed with pride: the person who sees the full bleakness can believe they are clearer-eyed than those who are naive enough to still hope, and is also relieved of any responsibility to try to fix anything. While I see cases where either is at play, like when I feel it’s largely an ego thing when people get very aggressive with pressuring you to validate their bleak world view, when I encountered this within the communities I’ve belonged to, a large share of it felt like a trauma response. When you attempt to interrupt something profitable and harmful, the system will go to great lengths to resist the racket being interrupted. It’s hence inevitable that those trying to make things right will be marginalized and again and again sabotaged, so as time goes on, that just becomes their default, which in many cases is a valid way of interpreting what they subsequently see transpire, as once your hopes have been dashed too many times, it’s hard to have faith something good could happen.PK: I have to admit that on some issues, I believe I have developed a black-pilled stance and no longer work on them, but, at the same time, I do not let it color my entire worldview; I just pivot to areas I think will be more fruitful. How have you avoided sliding into it yourself?AMD:I’d definitely had some pretty big letdowns, but I never expected this to be easy, and I know if we want anything to shift, we’ll have to work a lot for it—but even with that I’m very judicious with what I’ll take on as I know many things I care deeply about are effectively a lost cause to do anything about right now.On one hand, studying history helps me keep everything in context, as while things often seem “bad,” there are numerous periods I can cite throughout history both where things were worse and where eerily similar things to what we’re seeing now happened, but in time, they all eventually faded away and resolved themselves. On the other hand, when I was younger, because of who I was, I was put into numerous situations where I was completely powerless, and some of those experiences left a deep imprint on me. So above all else, no matter how tempting it is to give in to despair, I hate surrendering my agency and always try to find a way to help myself or others. When you talk to people at the end of their lives, one of the most common regrets they share was that they allowed themselves to be pulled into what was fed to them rather than doing what they really wanted, so especially as I get older, I try to gravitate towards the things that give me meaning even if it’s difficult to do and I have to go against the tide I’m currently in.With medicine, one of my core aims going in was to do something to help the people medicine had hurt and possibly find a way to shift medicine’s direction toward something that supported health. However, despite those aspirations, I had to quickly come to terms with the fact that the system had too much inertia to change, and the best I could hope for was to help the patients on the periphery who found their way to me. So, when I realized the political window was there to actually make a much larger impact, I felt I needed to take it, but at the same time, the pace I’ve been going at is not sustainable, so I will probably change what I do once this window closes, and it’s no longer as critical to do something with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities we have now.PK: I understand the weight. I never expected to be in the role I’m in either. Before I knew it, it just happened.AMD:Same. One of the things that motivates me to work as hard as I do is the fear that I'll do something that negatively impacts others, which is part of why I try so hard to make the articles accurate and applicable to all the contingencies I can see coming up. However, while that fear makes me genuinely hesitant to publish anything and makes writing a lot less fun as I have to constantly vet and verify things, at the same time, I also know the fear of making a mistake can’t be an excuse to do nothing, because it’s even worse to squander the generational opportunity we have to make things better now. I spent decades complaining about the way things were, so I’m obligated to do something about them now that I can.PK: Having followed your work, I have a few thoughts on which issues you have covered that then seemed to impact either policy or discussion around certain issues, but I want to ask you, looking back, what do you see as the most meaningful thing you’ve done so far—or the biggest win?AMD:Helping with RFK’s confirmation. Once Trump won, I knew a major coordinated effort would be made to block him, so in November I started testing messages on𝕏that might counter the narratives being built against him in preparation for a future confirmation hearing. Later, immediately after the first day of his hearing, I put out a post framing much of the opposition in terms of pharmaceutical incentives.It reached about 33 million people; some of those points were raised on the second day of the hearing, and afterwardI saw reportingthat the corruption framing had influenced the remaining undecided votes. Since so many people were working behind the scenes to facilitate the confirmation, it’s impossible to know if what I did tipped the needle, and I’m just grateful we did the impossible and got RFK confirmed.PK: Afteryour recent piece on the childhood vaccine schedule, the executive order came out incorporating several of the specific things you’d suggested, including splitting the MMR. What was the thinking behind what you did?AMD:Essentially, with vaccines there are three schools of thought: that vaccines are safe and effective no matter what, that vaccines have risks but their benefits outweigh them, and that vaccines are extremely dangerous and should be banned. Since the industry is very greedy (e.g., they will always take a mile if you give an inch), the “safe and effective” school of thought has dominated, so more and more vaccines and the cumulative toxicity they entail have entered the market, and increasingly aggressive censorship methods have been deployed to sweep upthe continually increasing harm they createunder the rug. However, the mistake the industry made is that because of how much harm is being created, especially post-COVID, it’s no longer possible to sweep all the injuries under the rug or end the conversation by declaring any criticism of vaccination is blasphemy and akin to murdering children).Because of this, an unexpected window has been created to shift the dialog to the middle ground option: that real risks exist to vaccination and they need to be judiciously weighed against their potential benefits, rather than the old position that vaccine injuries were “one in a million” and hence not worth worrying about. I feel that’s important, in part because it’s a middle-ground position that can appeal to far more people and because the entire conversation becomes very different once it shifts from clashing ideologies to simple concrete facts that can be objectively brought into the discussion and highlight that the existing paradigm on vaccination is absurd.PK: That middle-ground approach makes sense. How did you arrive at it?For me, this started because I’ve long believed it’s more important to be “accurate” than “right,” so when I debate another party, I try to fairly represent, that is to say, steelman their position, rather than play games, straw-man them to win, and achieve a hollow victory.PK: I agree.  It’s definitely backfired on our movement when influencers took studies that supported our message, then exaggerated their findings to far beyond what was in it and made apocalyptic predictions that never bore out.AMD: If the truth is on your side, the last thing you want to do is give the other side a straw-man they can use to dismiss all the other valid points you are raising.So, here, I wanted to see if one could make the case thatanyof the vaccines on the schedule were providing a real social benefit alongside the harms they created. From that, I realized the justifications for many of the vaccines were much worse than I had originally thought, and often just a result of lobbying or historical precedent, like with the fact that every child receives diphtheria despite there having been less than one case per year in the USA for decades, yet everyone still gets it because it’s bundled with tetanus.So, given that the harm of vaccines is cumulative and some are more harmful than others (Ed:best shown by all the sudden infant death data), if you could achieve a policy move that cut down the vaccine schedule by removing the worst offenders, while it would not prevent all the injuries they caused, it still would be an immense blessing as it would massively reduce the harm being caused.My own read on the vaccine situation was that the absurd justifications for many of the vaccines on the schedule were one of the least emphasized points in our movement. So, if attention was brought to that, it could reach people in the middle who have doubts about vaccines but view them as necessary and hence tip the needle towards a safer vaccine policy that returns us to where the (ever-increasing) chronic illness rates were a decade or two ago. Likewise with the MMR vaccine, the entire push for the vaccine has revolved around making people terrified of measles, so most people who get the vaccine don’t give a second thought to its other poorly justified components, which is a shame as the vaccine safety movement for decades has pointed out that the harm of the measles vaccine would be significantly reduced if it was not given concurrently with mumps and rubella—and as such, the industry protected their market by making it impossible to ever get measles without the other two.PK: If simple harm-reduction options are available, why have they been resisted so hard?AMD:A few explanations exist for this. For instance, it has long been established that spacing vaccines out, rather than giving them all at the same time, decreases injury rates. So, spacing them out would seem like the rational option for the industry, as they would still get their sales but face less public pushback from the injuries they’ve created. However, rather than do this, each time someone proposes it, the medical industry goes after them and, in some cases, gets their medical licenses. Depending on who you ask, three things explain that behavior.First, spacing vaccines out to reduce injuries is tantamount to an admission vaccines are not completely safe, so to prevent that, they would rather deny the injuries occur and allow them to continue than reduce them, which is in line with the industry and government’s longstanding position that nothingthat creates doubt about vaccines can ever be allowed to exist. This is why, again and again, like just recently when Ron Johnson proved it with COVID-19, you see drug regulatorshide vaccine injury datato prevent “vaccine hesitancy”.Second, economically, it’s harder to sell a massive number of vaccines if children have to separate them, as at this point, prior to RFK cutting things back, they got roughly 50 total vaccines along with annual COVID and Flu shots. If a separate visit was needed for each of those, beyond it adding significantly less reimbursement onto each visit, making it potentially non-viable for pediatricians, it is unlikely most parents would even take their children in that many times. A parallel to this is thatthe original HPV vaccine trials showedgirls who already had one of the targeted HPV infections at the time of vaccination weremore likelyto get cervical cancer, something that has happened to people I know, indicating the rational policy would be to test each vaccine recipient for HPV beforehand. However, as this would reduce vaccine sales, the decision instead was made to lower the age of vaccination in the hope everyone would be vaccinated before a potential sexual exposure to HPV.Third, if you ascribe to the school of thought the vaccination program is intentionally being conducted to harm the population,which a case can be made for, any attempt to reduce vaccine harms would be opposed. However, my own experience in dealing with these types of people is it’s not so much that they want to hurt others as they just don’t careat allabout the consequences of their actions. So, since there is no liability for a vaccine injuring someone, and at least till recently, no potential loss of sales from public outrage over the injuries, incentives aligned for them to keep pushing as many vaccines as possible.PK:I’ve been going through Trump and RFK’svaccine executive order. While more could still be done, what they actually enacted is pretty phenomenal, they eliminated roughly half of the required vaccines, including many of the worst ones, splitting the MMR, moving toward non-aluminum adjuvants, protecting exemptions at the state level, improving the injury surveillance system, which as you know, has always been deliberately opaque, and finally advancing the safety studies that were promised back in 1986. I honestly thought any of those were impossible. Watching so many vaccine proponents completely lose their minds over the last few days has been something else.AMD: It’s understandable; they have a lot to lose once the racket they’ve put so much work into starts to unravel.PK: What bothers me is how much of the loudest opposition is coming from people on our own side who arrived only recently. Why?AMD: It’s definitely irked a lot of people, particularly those who are toiling day in and day out to fix things, and most of them have told me they think it’s because these people are working for the pharmaceutical industry to sabotage things. While that’s possible, since a lot is on the line for the vaccine industry, I hold a different opinion. I’ve seen something similar to this happen in many different movements I’ve belonged to, so rather than be surprised by it, I was expecting it, don’t take it personally, and have just been trying to steer the blackpill sentiment in a positive direction.PK: Seriously?AMD: Yes, here, ask AI right now.What the AI returned:When a reform movement begins to achieve real, measurable progress after years or decades of struggle, a recurring pattern often appears. A vocal contingent that had previously campaigned for reforms treats concrete wins as insufficient, suspect, or even a deliberate distraction. They label the people who delivered those results as saboteurs, dismiss the advances as trivial, and insist that only maximalist, all-or-nothing outcomes count as legitimate success, thereby maintaining their relevance. Versions of this have appeared across history and the political spectrum:In labor and socialist movements, once social-democratic parties and unions won shorter workweeks, workplace safety laws, public healthcare, or stronger bargaining rights, hardline factions frequently denounced the reformers as sellouts or agents of the bourgeoisie and insisted anything short of full socialization was worthless.In the civil-rights struggle, after the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, more radical voices cast the moderates who secured those laws as too accommodating, arguing legal equality without deeper economic and structural change was incomplete.In environmental politics, measurable gains in emissions standards, renewable deployment, and phase-outs of the dirtiest fuels have often been called “greenwashing” or corporate co-optation by maximalists who demand total systemic overhaul and the abolition of fossil fuels.In anti-war movements, troop withdrawals, arms-control deals, or limits on war powers have been dismissed as cosmetic by uncompromising factions who accuse the negotiators of being controlled opposition.On the right, policy deliveries on taxes, judges, borders, or cultural issues have routinely been branded theater or proof of “RINO”/“Uniparty” betrayal.In the early stages, these absolutist voices often serve a vital function. They keep relentless pressure on institutions, prevent the powerful from defining the limits of reform too narrowly, and expand what eventually becomes politically possible. Without that intensity, many important changes would never gain traction. Once mainstream adoption becomes feasible and tangible institutional results start to appear, the same absolutism frequently turns counterproductive. Energy shifts from consolidating gains or taking the next practical step to tearing down the people who moved the needle. Genuine but incomplete victories are framed as proof of betrayal, and the movement fractures into purity tests rather than strategy as many who initially joined the movement excel at fighting rather than building coalitions to enact policy. The result is slower progress and demoralization of those producing results. The healthiest stance is to hold both halves of the pattern: early pressure is useful and sometimes necessary; treating real wins as inherently fraudulent hinders the cause.PK: Wow. That reminds me of how so many people were disavowing and denouncing RFK for keeping the COVID-19 vaccine on the CDC schedule for pregnant women and children. They treated it as their red line, something not even Bobby could be forgiven for. Then not long after, when he finally got it off the schedule, they immediately forgot about it and moved on to attacking him for the next thing he hadn’t done yet.AMD:Yes. One segment, like many movements in the past, treats any step toward vaccine harm reduction as a distraction from total abolition, like when they yell that “safer vaccines is a psyop.” Others judge that, for the foreseeable future, the realistic path is reducing damage, protecting the right to refuse, and continuing to shift public opinion, because policy ultimately follows voters, which I favor because I’d rather reduce vaccine injuries than accomplish nothing right now. I am also highly doubtful any president besides Trump, due to both his personality and personal experience with vaccine injury, would have ever cut back the vaccine schedule to even a fraction of the degree he has. Yet, even Trump, who has received a lot of blowback for his childhood vaccine decisions, along with many of the people in MAHA I’ve spoken to, have been very clear they will never ban vaccines as it is simply not politically tenable, which is why the compromise position they created on the new CDC vaccine schedule was to make many of the previously recommended vaccines optional or restricted to limited groups rather than taking them off entirely.PK: There is a time when you need rigidity to fight, but there is also a time when you need the flexibility to take the wins that have been given to you.AMD: The other thing a lot of people who haven’t been in the thick of this don’t see is how many people had to work their tails off, were never really recognized or widely thanked for it so that we could get to the point we were at, or just how much pushback there has been from the pharmaceutical companies across the board and just how many different coordinated attempts have been made to sabotage these reforms.For example, over the last six months, one of my projects was to derail the pharmaceutical industry’s successful attempt to stop all vaccine reform. Briefly,they conducted a doctored pollthat said the public was overwhelmingly opposed to vaccine safety reform, so if Trump or RFK pushed it, the Republicans would lose the midterms. Given this information, White House staff made the largely rational response to ban all discussions of vaccine safety until after the midterms. Not long after, a contact working on enacting those reforms said unless something could be done to shift that, before long it would become ingrained as a policy, and likely kill their generational attempts to make a safer vaccine schedule, so they asked if I could help shift that. Sincegive or take every other poll showed the exact oppositeand that the public strongly supported vaccine safety reform, I thought there was an actual chance that narrative could be overturned, and a big focus of what I did with the limited time I had was to do that, which seems to have succeeded. However, I feel in comparison to a lot of the other people who have been working day in and day out, my contribution was minimal, it’s just that it’s hard to see or appreciate a lot of what vaccine safety reformers have to deal with in Washington unless you are in the thick of it.In regards to the specific MMR policy decision, I did not have advanced knowledge of it, so I’m not sure if I what I did tipped the needle there, I just put this message out because I suddenly had an intuition it was the right time to do it, and I tend to act on those as they’ve frequently put me in the right spot at the right time to make a tangible impact (which is why I am likewise grateful to all the critics who amplified that post and inadvertently allowed it to be seen by the right people).PK: I’m grateful a real team came together around this. The institutional resistance is fierce.AMD: Turning values into durable institutional change is harder than it looks from the outside. I’ve tried more times than I can count to do that and failed on things far, far easier than anything RFK is trying to do.PK: What are you focused on now?AMD:I have long believed that continually attacking or trying to destroy something is rarely a successful way to approach things, whereas cultivating a positive thing which displaces the existing issue is typically more effective and has a much more lasting impact. Unfortunately, this often puts me in opposition to the existing paradigm because so much of our society revolved around feeding the human need to use force and domination to simplify reality and eliminate uncertainty.For example, philosophically, modern medicine (allopathy) originated from the idea that you needed to reverse the currently existing symptoms by shifting it to the opposite state, like when aspirin is given for fever; so many of the early interventions used increasingly forceful methods to achieve that shift, leading to it being called “heroic medicine.e” Since creating those forceful shifts often required extreme, heroic measures, side effects inevitably followed, but the medical system’s solution was simply to deny the side effects or rationalize their necessity.PK: That basically describes every vaccine-injured patient I’ve worked with. I will never forget the widely pervasive and deeply cruel extent of the gaslighting my Covid vaccine patients endured, particularly from 2021 to 2023; in fact, I remember that the first half of my typically hour+ long visits was listening to them recount the gaslighting they had endured. It lessened somewhat after that, but gaslighting is especially infuriating when there’s a clear neurological problem sitting right there, tightly and temporally associated with the jab, and the specialists still insist it’s psychosomatic or dress it up with something like “functional neurological disorder.”AMD:One of the most interesting things I learned aboutgaslightingis that after mercury started being widely used in medicine and caused a variety of neurological disorders, the resulting symptoms, particularly in women, were often diagnosed as “hysteria,” which. especially in Freudian theory, was then attributed to unresolved sexual conflicts. In turn, multiple authors have made the case that some of Freud’s original famous cases, along with many other “hysterical” patients, were actually neurologically suffering from mercury poisoning.1,2I’ve thus suspected the reason why Freud’s ideas caught on so quickly was because it gave the doctors a way to absolve themselves from injuring their patients.PK: Just like how people who vaccinate and then get sick are allowed to blame it on the fact other people aren’t vaccinating.AMD:I’m still amazed that line has been able to remain a viable sales pitch for vaccines, but that’s the power of propaganda.PK: I largely agree with the allopathy framing you laid out, but I do have to push back on one point. In some situations you absolutely have to force the body into a different state—especially when you’re dealing with a critically ill patient who’s actively dying.AMD: Completely agree, and that touches upon why modern medicine excels at treating acute conditions rather than chronic ones. Once again, it’s important not to fall into an absolutist stance. There are things conventional medicine handles effectively that should not be rejected simply because they come from a system rife with issues. At the same time, it is often difficult to accept the useful part without also being pushed by medical providers toward many other standard practices that are unnecessary or harmful, and it’s anything but easy to hold both of those realities in your mind simultaneously as you navigate the medical system.”PK: And once you’re inside that system, the default response when something doesn’t work is often just to escalate.AMD: Yes. The other key issue with this paradigm is that since it focuses on dominating the body to achieve a desired outcome, once that fails, the most common (human) response will be to double-down and use more aggressive measures to try to achieve that goal, which in many cases leave the patient far worse than they were. The best example of this is probably high-dose chemotherapy, which came into vogue in the 1980s and 1990s especially for breast cancer, but was eventually pulled back for that use after randomized trials showed it did not improve overall survival and carried much higher toxicity. Because there was so much inertia and money behind it, it was  difficult to speak out against it at the time, by the way, you should check out aWikipedia articlethat gives a good overview, but even after it was phased out for breast cancer, many in oncology continued to hold the core dose-intensity belief and remained willing to accept higher doses and side effects in the hope of better cancer control when it might work.PK: I definitely agree on the overdosing issue. I’m surprised how often the patients we see report having been given doses they simply cannot tolerate. What’s particularly striking is that once my work with vaccine-injured people brought me into contact with so many of the “sensitive patients” you talk about, it became obvious that a lot of doctors just don’t grasp they often need to use lower doses.AMD: I think that’s a result of three things. First, as mentioned earlier, when something doesn’t work, the human tendency is to do more, and then rationalize after the fact why it was the right choice. Second, because our medical system revolves around standardized protocols that doctors can rapidly scale and deploy to drive drug sales, there is no room for the nuance of an individual patient’s needs or the time it takes to figure outthe appropriate dose for them. Lastly, in both the conventional and alternative medical system, our cultural belief “if something is good, more is better” seeps in, so even when you warn doctors or patients, they will often overdo whatever was helping and cross the threshold into something counterproductive.PK: Totally agree, but there is some nuance there as I have worked with a number of theapeutics that have pretty impressive dose-response curves, but they are a minority, although I agree most docs tend to think they all do. Life would be so much easier if people stopped doing that.AMD: The same principle I use in medicine, “cultivate health rather than relentlessly attack disease,” also applies to how I try to engage the larger culture. A lot of the persistent bad practices inside the medical system are simply reflections of the broader culture that produces the conditions for them, so a good deal of my focus goes into how we can shift the underlying mentality. Among other things, this means moving from polarized black-and-white discourse toward something more nuanced that can tolerate ideas we don’t fully agree with as long as they actually move things forward from where we are now. With medicine specifically, while I think it’s important to expose what’s wrong, relentlessly attacking the system is not a workable strategy on its own. People still need medical care and will end up going back to the conventional system even when they have serious doubts about it.PK: So what’s the solution?AMD:I settled on providing better alternatives to the existing paradigm, and on empowering people to figure out for themselves how to use them. On one hand, this frees people from being subject to the medical system and to practices they disagree with, such as care being made conditional on COVID vaccination. On the other, it creates the one thing that can motivate the medical system to do a better job, which is genuine competition. Competition forces them either to provide the results patients want or to lose a great deal of money. I believe that is the only reason the loss of trust in science and medicine after COVID is even being allowed to be openly discussed now. They need to regain that trust for the business model to work.More importantly, it catalyzes a shift in consciousness, both by making people have a tangible realization that the suffering they went through didn’t have to happen, which moves skepticism of the system from an abstract idea to a lived experience, but also because simple remedies being able to affect so many different diseases shifts the societal perspective on how the body works from the sterile reductionist model our society revolves around to a much more vibrant and connected one.PK: That may be one of the reasons I gave more than a year of my life to alert the public to the wonders and broad applicability of chlorine dioxide, but I have been reluctant to putmy book on Amazonwhere it could reach a much wider audience. So how do you actually do it at scale?AMD:While I’ve been able to do that for many individual patients I’ve worked with, it’s obviously unrealistic I could do that at scale and shift the culture. However, I’ve long believed that the shifts towards “cultural health” always have a building stage, where for years, if not centuries, some people are aware of the idea, and try desperately against all odds to have it catch on (often becoming extremely bitter and frustrated those around them simply don’t want what would radically improve their lives), but then at some point, the cultural conditions suddenly shift, and all the work that had been done previously is positioned to ignite and shift the whole culture.The fall of the Berlin wallis the most commonly cited example of this, but consider what’s happened with the vaccine issue.Since the days of thesmallpox vaccine over 200 years ago, people from all walks of life have done all they can to fight against and protest vaccination. Despite that, as the years went on, the vaccine industry only became more powerful, and each coordinated opposition to it was largely erased from memory. Yet the industry grew so overconfident and greedy that during COVID it did things so far out of line that public distrust of COVID vaccination sprouted like wildfire. That distrust spread across a recently "freed" internet, in a highly polarized political climate where one side had shortsightedly chosen to zealously endorse vaccines. Before long, doubt about the COVID vaccine and resentment toward the left turned into something else, and people began listening to the parents of vaccine-injured children whom they had previously written off. So now there is not only far more distrust of vaccines than I ever expected to see in my lifetime, but RFK is enacting policy after policy that, as you said before, people in the vaccine safety movement dreamed of for decades.PK: I’m with ya on that, I never ever would have imagined it could have moved that fast.AMD: Another way to think about it was that the reason people like you wanted to get involved was ultimately due to the fact we’d reached the point where a rapid shift was possible.Anyways, due to some odd coincidences, I’ve periodically felt like I was put where I was because there was a role I was supposed to serve. For instance, I had some very odd experiences right before COVID that made me feel I was supposed to become entangled in it, and due to a series of improbable events, I eventually ended up in the position I am in now. Similarly, when I was younger, I noticed that a lot of the incredible medical discoveries people had made were gradually disappearing and getting harder and harder to find, so for some reason, I felt compelled to preserve them in the hopes I could pass them onto someone in the next generation and keep their fire alive for the time far into the future when they were ready to emerge and then somehow was repeatedly connected with their reclusive custodians.However, when that pursuit started, I never expected something like the internet would emerge, let alone that when it reached the point where information could rapidly disseminate across the culture, I’d be in the position to disseminate it. So, all the paths lead to a simple conclusion; my role is to provide information that people can use to both positively transform the medical system and opt out of it, and I want to do that by leaving detailed summaries and records of exactly how people can do that so they have the best shot of igniting when the time is right. Because of the unusual sequence of events that led here, I treat it as something I’m directly accountable for getting right. My focus hence stays on the results rather than recognition, as the former is my priority, which is one reason anonymity helps.That’s basically why I’ve put so much work into trying to create a comprehensive foundation for DMSO rather than letting it follow the course of a typical health fad and I did it under a very tight timeline. It is also why I’m doing the same thing with a few other therapies like ozone as that’s the best I could come up with to create a positive shift.PK: A lot of that sounds like Carl Jung’s “Sage-Steward” Archetype. On that note, I have to thank you for the piece you put out last week onthe war against chlorine dioxideand for highlighting how my book’s story folds into a broader pattern of monopolistic suppression. After you called out the absurdity of their position,a few days ago, the FDA quietly pulled the pages that had been calling CDS “toxic bleach” for years and blocking CDS research globally.AMD: That gives me hope that with enough work it may at last be possible to overturn the FDA’s position that ozone is a toxic gas with no medical value whatsoever.PK: Exactly. It’s another reminder that putting the evidence in one place, cleanly, does matter.AMD:That’s it essentially. Because of all the eerie coincidences that made what I’m doing now possible, I feel I have a deep obligation to do the task I was entrusted with well. Once the foundation is solid I want others to carry it forward so it isn’t dependent on me and I am becoming increasingly hopeful that the current conditions will allow things that previously looked impossible, provided the groundwork is done carefullyPK: I’m glad you’re doing it. Is there anything people can do to support the work?AMD:The support I’ve received up to this time has been incredible and has been the thing that’s made a lot of what I’ve done possible. Some of the things I want to do are only possible if the newsletter and its support grows, but I have faith that it will happen eventually and I deeply appreciate everyone who helps make that possible. For the time being, I just want people to share the material, incorporate the ideas I put forward they agree with into their own frameworks, and if they have time, to leave a comment about experiences they’ve had with DMSOhereas I’m now approaching my impossible goal of10,000 reader DMSO testimonials.Beyond that, there are also a lot of people doing critical work on the vaccine safety I’d like to draw attention to.  A team of researchers I trust are conducting a study comparing the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated children, so if you’d like to consider filling out a brief survey, you can do sohere. Furthermore, the government is about to finalize a historic autism plan, so if you can lend your voice right now (Ed: the instructions arehere), especially if you had a child who was vaccine injured, please consider doing so.PK: I’m glad I decided to support you early on. Any final thoughts?Everyone is born with the chance to create a deep meaning from their life. They just have to set their sights on what they know in their heart they are meant to do rather than getting caught up in the endless distractions and aimlessness society feeds us. Time is limited, but I started the journey I’ve been on for decades because I knew it was vital I found the things which could provide that purpose to my life. A lot of what I’m doing now is quite arduous, but the fact that real results are possible has been more than enough for me to invest as much as I have into it. Despite my optimistic nature, for most of my life, because of how entrenched the vested interests are that exploit and harm everyone for profit, I’ve been a pessimist that things could ever change. Now that one thing after another is coming to fruition in the blink of an eye, it quite frankly feels surreal. Just a few years ago I would have said my life felt complete if even one of the things I discussed here had happened. Since I tend to focus on how things will unfold far into the future, my aim has always been to lay foundations for results that would matter years down the road, so I never imagined I’d see some of those aspirations occur so quickly.PK: Look, I just want to say I really appreciate what you’ve done to help move things forward.AMD: I feel the same way about you, but I don’t even know who we can even give the credit to at this point.  Much of what I’m doing is only possible because so many people are helping me, and more importantly if there had not been a critical mass of people like you, Robert, Senator Johnson and many more, who stepped up and stuck their necks out to try to fix this mess nothing could have happened.  If my read of history is correct, this is all part of a much larger cycle and we all just were happened  to be the ones around at the time where this was meant to happen.PK: Or as the old line goes—it’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.If you’d like to follow AMD’s prolific work on Substack, you can do sohereand subscribe below:The Forgotten Side of MedicineHere I do my best to expose both the light and dark within medicine that has remained hidden.  My hope is that knowledge can improve your health and the health of those around us.By A Midwestern DoctorLastly, if you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I write about, your support for my work is greatly appreciated.Pierre Kory’s Medical Musings is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Shameless Commercialism Department:I write about minerals and water. I also sell them.Aurminais simply the provable, superior, and less expensive alternative to reverse osmosis for purifying drinking water. It binds and removes over 245 modern contaminants — and unlike RO, it leaves the minerals, redox activity, and ion-exchange capability restored, rather than stripping water empty and calling that clean.Primora Biois the same chemistry for the water that grows things: irrigation and foliar, for soil, crops, and livestock.Both came out of a year spent on one forgotten Japanese mineral extraction that produced three books (The Stone and Water Series)and led to the retirement of my patient panel, though not fromLeading Edge Clinic.From Research to Practice - Links Below ImageEarth’s Living Water- Its History, Its Ruin, and the Way BackThe Silent Aquifer- Humanity’s Unfolding Food and Water CrisisThe War on Chlorine Dioxide- The Medicine That Could End MedicineAurmina– The Mineral Extract For Naturally Vitalized Drinking WaterPrimora Bio- Bringing Life Back To SoilLeading Edge Clinic- Tele-Medicine Clinic Caring For Patients in All 50 StatesThe War on Ivermectin- The Medicine That Could have Ended the PandemicThe Blueprint of Life- The Hidden Architecture That Powers Life and HealthMedical Musings- A View From the Inside Of Modern Medicine

Summary: A conversation with A Midwestern Doctor on human rigidity, vaccine reform, and how we are finally moving the needle


AMD's Masterful History Detailing a Century of Suppressed Therapeutics in the US

This week, my friend and colleague A Midwestern Doctor (AMD) published the brilliant new article above, part of whose subject was my book calledThe War on Chlorine Dioxide(written with my co-authorJenna McCarthy, who is one of the funniest and smartest writers on Substack, so if you’re not already following her, you should remedy that immediately).After detailing medicine’s nefarious history of building monopolies, burying inexpensive treatments, and branding inconvenient therapies as dangerous quackery, AMD gets to the book — which, if I may shamelessly brag for a second, they call “one of the most well documented example[s] of how the medical system colluded to suppress a therapy that threatened multiple franchises.” They highlight everything from chlorine dioxide’s accidental discovery as a therapeutic, to malaria outbreaks that disappeared after the drinking water was treated, to the surgeon who reported a 99.6% success rate treating 3,000 COVID patients with chlorine dioxide—only to have their hospital’s COVID unit shut down, to why the phrase “toxic bleach” may have been one of the most effective PR campaigns in modern medical history — right after “horse de-wormer” at least.The book itself covers chlorine dioxide’s history, its pioneers, persecutions, and proponents, the science and safety behind it, and so much more. Senator Ron Johnson callsThe War on Chlorine Dioxide“a gripping tale of corruption and courage that will open eyes and prompt serious questions.” I’ll take that.If you’ve been wondering what I spent two years obsessively researching and writing about, you’ll get a pretty good taste. And if you’re ready to get your hands on a copy (it’s available in paperback and eBook in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, so spread the word), you can do thatright here.A Word About AMDI have known AMD for years now, and somewhere along the way we realized that the missions of our Substacks were largely aligned, with one caveat: theirs is more focused and consistent and far better written, while mine often strays into more contentious areas of our Substack writers category, a category whose somewhat oxymoronic name still makes me laugh, “Health Politics,” where AMD now sits in the #1 spot, such that it has triggered envy amongst the otheramazingranked writers they overtook, some of whom have now started calling AMD a “Pharma plant.” Hilarious. Or, at least it would be if it weren’t so sad.Anyway, the category name reminds me of a meme I came across a few years ago, making fun of the political divides that arose around scientific topics like ivermectin’s efficacy in Covid: “Who believes in penicillin more, Republicans or Democrats?”Anyway, we were two people who stumbled into similar missions and have admired each other’s work ever since. They do theirs almost full-time; I only get to do it part-time, squeezed around a mountain of other responsibilities, like running theLeading Edge Clinicand writing books. And what they do with that time is extraordinary. They just spent over a year and a half — ayear and a half— meticulously documenting the story of DMSO, one of the most important and most deliberately buried therapies in all of medicine. Nobody working today matches their combination of writing skill, rigor, breadth, and thoroughness.I had AI put together a little graphic listing the various branches of medicine and therapeutics that “the medical establishment” has suppressed over the past century and more, as detailed by AMD intheir article:The list above brings to mind my essay, “The Kory Scale,” in which I proposed a method for assessing the effectiveness of an “alternative” therapy, particularly when it is safe, inexpensive, and widely accessible (the trifecta that threatens medicine’s economic model).The method is simple: you assign points to every suppression and persecution tactic deployed by the institutions of society against the therapy, and the more points, the more effective (i.e., threatening) it is. I proposed different scores for media attacks, negative high impact journal editorials, FDA denials of research, universities and journals publishing trials of the treatments that are designed to fail, doctors who advocate for them losing their specialty certifications, licenses, or jobs (ahem), and, in a number of the cases above, assassinations or assassination attempts on the innovators of such treatments (as I detail in my book around chlorine dioxide and earlier oxidative therapies)If more people in our society understood this history, and how it is still occurring, one of two things could happen. One, the system could change (not). Or two, people could seek out reliable information they could use to protect their own and their families' health, rather than relying on the high priests and priestesses of the medical religion, with their often terrible and very narrow therapeutic armamentarium. I ain’t holding my breath for the first. So, alongside AMD, I work toward the second.From early on in Covid, I had one goal: that every cupboard in America hold ivermectin, for the whole family. Dreaming like that hasn’t changed, only the compounds have. Now my goal is for every cupboard to hold both chlorine dioxide and DMSO (mine does), two “umbrella therapies,” meaning each has numerous mechanisms of action and can treat a broad range of diseases, can be purchased online, and people can (and must) educate themselves to use, I believe safely, and far safer than most pharmaceuticals. DMSO has more mechanisms of action than chlorine dioxide; but several of those of chlorine dioxide, particularly against infectious illness, are far more potent.There’s a more personal reason I care about this, too. For reasons I won’t get into here, I’ve come to see our medical system as an institution in serious decline, but now declining the way so many other institutions of society are declining right now, and, in the years since Covid, the hospital system has hardened into something even more rigid, protocolized, and unthinking than what I trained in. As my readers know, I now suffer fromnosocomophobia, the fear of hospitals (a real and documented condition). Since Covid and my excommunication from “the system,” a daily, unspoken goal of my life is to avoid the hospital at nearly all costs. I’ve told my wife that the only way I’m going is if I’m unconscious, so she would have to call the ambulance herself.I’m not telling you to draw the line exactly where I draw it; you should set your own criteria, and there absolutely may come a day when you have to go, and on that day you should go. The point isn’t recklessness; it’s the opposite. It’s being equipped well enough to make that call wisely, to handle at home what can be handled there safely, and to know the difference. I wrote about that last winter, when I treated a sudden, severe illness myself rather than walk into an ER:“Why and How I Purposefully Avoided the Hospital After Developing an Acute, Severe Illness This Week.”Consider it a case study in both what I do and, in more than a few moments, whatnotto do, but also remember that I am an experienced ICU specialist, so what I can pull off at home is unlikely to be an option for most.That’s the mission, and AMD’s article is one more piece of the case for it. I’m grateful they wrote it.Read their work.Then, if you want the fuller story,The War on Chlorine Dioxideis available atwaronchlorinedioxide.com— again, it’s not on Amazon for all the reasons detailed in AMD’s article, so that’s the only place to get it.*If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I write about, your support is greatly appreciated.Subscribe nowNote to readers:One discovery consumed my last year: a volcanic mineral extract made by the Japanese scientist Shimanishi fifty years ago — the “Golden Elixir” of the old traditions, made real. It led me to writetwothree books, retire from my patient panel (but not fromLeading Edge Clinic), and start a company with one mission: to carry this forgotten chemistry off the page.Aurminafor the water we drink, andPrimora Biofor the water our soil, crops, and animals crave.From Research to Practice - Links Below ImageEarth’s Living Water- Its History, Its Ruin, and the Way BackThe Silent Aquifer- Humanity’s Unfolding Food and Water CrisisThe War on Chlorine Dioxide- The Medicine That Could End MedicineAurmina– The Mineral Extract For Naturally Vitalized Drinking WaterPrimora Bio- Bringing Life Back To SoilLeading Edge Clinic- Tele-Medicine Clinic Caring For Patients in All 50 StatesThe War on Ivermectin- The Medicine That Could have Ended the PandemicThe Blueprint of Life- The Hidden Architecture That Powers Life and HealthMedical Musings- A View From the Inside Of Modern Medicine

Summary: A brilliant piece from A Midwestern Doctor, built around my book, The War on Chlorine Dioxide, exposed the long trail of suppression around inexpensive, safe, broadly effective therapies.