Dear Senator Bernie Sanders

Dear Senator Sanders,

            On 16 March 2020 I mailed a letter and package of scientific information from Johannesburg South Africa to eight members of the US Senate and seventeen members of the House of Representatives about the danger of Covid-19 and what the United States could do to reduce the impact of the approaching disaster. Unfortunately, the South African Postal Service was completely shut down two days after I posted those packages, so I believe they never arrived in Congress. Of course, you were one of the senators I included in that mailing. A copy of that letter is included on page 140 of my book Understanding Covid-19, How 500,000 American Lives Could Have Been Saved. I have enclosed one of those several documents for your review.   

            Long Covid is an increasing concern and there is an essay on Long Covid in my book. There also are copies of emails and the letter I sent Dr Anthony Fauci in March and December 2020. Finally, in February 2022 when 15,000 American were dying each week in the US, I could no longer withstand my absolute frustration at the unnecessary loss of lives here. At great personal loss I returned to the US after twenty years in Africa to try to help my country do the right thing for the American people. I wanted to bring this issue to the attention of Congress and encourage the medical community to follow the science, use what works to help reduce SARS-2 infection, reduce the incidence of serious disease and death, and probably reduce the incidence of Long Covid. That is, by using antiviral selenium supplement tablets that have proved to slow HIV disease progression and greatly reduce deaths from Ebola.

            Did the NIH purposefully ignore, or did it incompetently miss the discovery that out of 10,000 chemicals screened for effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2, the number one most effective drug or molecule was Ebselen. Ebselen is a compound drug that is a type of selenium supplement used at pharmacologic strength. The NIH also ignored the discovery that 100% of Covid patients who are hospitalized, are on ventilators or die, are severely selenium deficient. This deficiency rapidly advances as the disease progresses. This is exactly what happens in end-stage Ebola and HIV disease as well. Given only these few facts, it is obvious that replenishing the immune system’s deficit of selenium alone may result in reducing deaths from Covid-19 by up to 50%, just as it did with Ebola. I explain why that happens in my book Understanding Covid-19.

            Long Covid has frequently been compared to chronic fatigue syndrome – CFS - and autoimmune disease. CFS is caused by infection by other viruses including Epstein-Barre. But CFS does not include the full panoply of symptoms Long Covid encompasses. That is due to SARS-CoV-2’s infection of the numerous cell types that include ACE-2 receptors and explains why Covid and Long Covid cause so many various symptoms.

            Selenium supplements are a well-known therapy for autoimmune diseases, CFS, and most but not all symptoms caused by Covid including inflammation, blood clotting, fatigue, depression, and pneumonia. Although selenium may or may not help repair nerve damage, it should reduce nerve damage if used during initial infection. Selenium works as an anti-inflammatory and is also a broad-spectrum antiviral nutritional medicine. It is the strongest antioxidant, and the strongest medicinal agent to boost immunity. Selenium is the strongest substance to prevent death from Covid. Increasing selenium levels increases CD4 count and helps regain control of a hyperactive immune response. Selenium supplements have no negative side effects and are not contraindicated to any medication. They are completely safe.

            Selenium is not a cure for Covid nor any other disease. It is not a “cure” for any single symptom of Covid-19 or Long Covid. However, it is a partial solution to most lingering symptoms of Long Covid. Since selenium has been proved to help reduce the incidence of heart attack, stroke, cancer, depression, and fatigue in those who have not suffered Covid-19, it is generally a good health precaution for anyone to take selenium, especially if they are over the age of 60. Selenium has been shown to reduce the chance of viral infection and reduce the virulence or severity of viral infection. Thus, it should be widely recommended that selenium be taken to reduce the disease burden of viral infections including Covid-19. Why do we not do that? By boosting the immune system’s resistance to viruses, supplementing with selenium could be considered like wearing an internal mask - one more barrier to infection. Why ignore that? Who benefits? Certainly not you, the American people, nor the American taxpayer. Farmers use selenium enriched feed to protect the health of their livestock. Is human health worth less than that of cows, pigs, and chickens?      

             Has selenium been tested against Covid-19? No. Does it work against every other enveloped virus it has been tested against? Yes. Does every other indicator suggest that selenium should help against Covid-19? Yes. So why has it not been tested? Incompetence at the top? Yes. Or even worst. In fact, by ignoring selenium, the NIH has worked to protect the special interest of the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the American people, and the America taxpayer. The NIH is the welfare agency for the pharmaceutical industry, robbing Taxpayer Peter to pay Pharmaceutical Company Paul. That has left many average citizens in the ICU and many others suffering Long Covid. That condition can be avoidable or reduced in many cases. Over the decades this ignorance of selenium has resulted in Serial Pandemic Failure. That is why I have titled my second book How to End Serial Pandemic Failure, HIV-1 to Covid-19.

            Although not yet tested in clinical trials, when Ebselen-selenium was tested in the laboratory against SARS-CoV-2 it ranked as the number one most effective out of 10,000 agents screened. Then it was ignored? Incredible!

            Many of your constituents have been affected by this major “flaw in the system” that has cost the government between one and two trillion dollars so far in this pandemic alone. It will cost much more in the future if not corrected. This has increased the national deficit, and contributed to inflation – all to benefit the special interest of Big Pharm. While physicians have used a long list of ineffective drugs to treat Covid, the NIH has ignored another whole class of effective antiviral drugs sitting on the pharmacy shelf that can be used both in early and severe Covid. These are the broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that physicians refer to as NSAIDs, not realizing they work just as strongly as antivirals as they do as anti-inflammatories. They do both by affecting the same human protein, NF-kB. How naïve can once ingenious Americans be? As naïve as the NIH forces us to be. SHAME on them. The NIH approach is new drugs for new diseases, no matter how many Americans must die while waiting for those hoped for, partially effective drugs to be developed. They failed with HIV and let thousands die in the early 1990s when these same NSAID drugs could have been used as antivirals. They failed with Ebola by ignoring selenium’s proven ability to hugely reduce mortality rates. They failed again miserably with Covid-19. And they will fail with the next, perhaps worse pandemic that could strike at any time. How long do Americans have to put up with this? The better question is, how long do Americans have to die and/or end up with Long Covid for this ineptitude? It took fifteen years to finally develop effective treatments for HIV. New drug development always takes years. Meanwhile people die because we do not use existing effective drugs.

No one knew about NF-kB inhibitors until NF-kB was discovered in 1986. Now we do. Why does Tony Fauci feign ignorance? Why do doctors fail to use these drugs that work? Is this due to pharmaceutical or governmental health agency turpitude? Or both? Is it simply greed, or greed multiplied by incompetence? Is the taxpayer getting what they deserve? Or is the taxpayer getting fooled? People whose loved ones died of Covid and those with Long Covid deserve to know. Why must we go through this initial pandemic death-phase every time a new deadly virus appears?       

            According to Article 27 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to …share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” This includes knowledge that selenium helps against viral disease, and that NSAID/NF-kBI drugs and steroid nuclear-factor kappaB inhibitors are effective as broad-spectrum antivirals and therefore should be used appropriately to treat viral disease. This should not be covered-up by the research establishment. In this case the people’s right to health has been abused. Likewise, the rights to life and health of hundreds of thousands of Americans have been abrogated by the failure to utilize established but arcane science early on against this viral disease.

            We need to follow the facts. We need to follow the science. Both show that selenium is the fuel the immune system requires to be effective and to control hyper-immunity and hyperinflammatory responses. Selenium is as essential for life and health as oxygen or water. This should not be covered up by those who are in the know, to the incalculable detriment of ordinary Americans, the finances of the American government, the economy, and humanity. To date, we have failed to utilize the facts of science. We have failed the American people. We must end this injustice.

            Senator Sanders, I urge you. Please raise this issue of the purposeful ignorance and abuse of science to a higher level. This has hurt and killed too many people - millions. If you do not help cut this Gordian Knott of scientific obstructionism and medical injustice and end serial pandemic failure, who will? The next pandemic could come at any time. It might be more deadly. Are we prepared? No. Not if we continue to ignore selenium and NF-kB inhibitors.

            Scientifically Yours,

 

            Howard S. Armistead