Strategic Pandemic Failures Continue

Dear Member of Congressional Health Subcommittee,

            Senator Patty Murray was exactly right eight months ago in the Senate Health Committee hearing on Covid when she said that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” She also said we need to “invest in prevention now”, “keep several irons in the fire”, and “support a new generation of treatments.” Finally, she mentioned we need to “end the cycle of crisis and complacency.” Had she already read my book Dear Bill Gates, How to End Serial Pandemic Failure, HIV-1 to Covid-19? We seem to be on the same page. She asked the questions, and I provided many of the answers in the enclosed book that I am currently reediting and expanding.  

            Unfortunately, We the People of the United States were let down by Anthony Fauci, the NIH, and the CDC from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. They failed to apply known basic scientific principles to protect the lives of the American people. They thought no one would notice because the science is so obscure. This is not the first time they have ignored or covered up legitimate scientific solutions to threatening health problems. They did it before with HIV and Ebola. Fewer Americans died from those. It takes intensive ignoring of basic scientific facts for one million Americans to die. How many millions will die if they continue to ignore this with H5N1 influenza? They will. How many of your constituents, friends, family, or neighbors may perish?                    

            What basic scientific facts am I referring to? One could say cause and effect. Turn down a rheostat and the lights will dim, or the temperature will fall. Take your foot off the gas pedal and your car will slow. If you reduce the primary stimulant to viral replication and inflammation, the rate of viral replication and inflammation will diminish. Why did the NIH fail to do that? Because that does not put billions into someone’s pocket.

            Reducing viral replication and inflammation is as easy as taking your foot off the gas petal. The human protein NF-KB is the primary stimulant to the replication of most viruses including HIV, SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A. NF-kB inhibitors – NF-kBIs - work against almost all viruses, mutated or otherwise. Why did physicians not use them? I reminded Anthony Fauci about them in March 2020. We did not use them because they were too cheap. They could have been used as early therapy when Fauci was falsely broadcasting that there was no early therapy for Covid. NF-kBIs could have kept people out of the hospital. Doctors used dexamethasone, a strong NF-kB inhibitor once people landed in the hospital. Why not before to slow disease progression and keep people from getting so sick in the first place? A list of those NF-kB inhibitors is on page 48 of Dear Bill Gates, How to  End Serial Pandemic Failure, HIV-1 to Covid-19. Some profited billions due to this oversight. At least a half-million extra million Americans died because of it. 

            As if ignoring NF-kBIs were not bad enough, the NIH also ignored selenium. What is selenium? Selenium is the mineral that is the most essential ingredient for both cellular and human health. It is the key ingredient constituting the antioxidants that keep cells healthy. Antioxidants are the cellular immune system. Selenium is also the most important ingredient for the human immune system. All aspects of immune response require selenium. If you have enough selenium, your immune system will be strong. When selenium levels fall to 20% below normal, one has immunodeficiency. If one loses 30% of their selenium, they are finished. That is how viruses kill. HIV, Ebola, Covid and avian influenza all deplete selenium from the body. If they drain enough, you are gone. Scientists have shown that every single person who is hospitalized with Covid is selenium deficient. As the disease progresses, selenium is depleted more rapidly. Those who overcome this depletion survive. Those who do not, perish.          

            Lose enough water, a person dies. Lose enough oxygen, a person dies. Lose enough selenium, a person dies. Replace enough water, oxygen or selenium in time and people will live. Why did Tony Fauci ignore this basic scientific fact? Because few know this arcane, neglected science. Others were minting billions.     

            Everyone should be concerned about misinformation, but also about censorship. Many claim chloroquine and ivermectin work against Covid and that Covid vaccines are dangerous. My book Understanding Covid-19, How 500,000 American Lives Could Have Been Saved opposes those positions but it is effectively censored. The problem comes when real information about basic science and affordable therapies is also suppressed, covered up, and people are not allowed to be informed. Keep irons in the fire, but pull them out when needed, especially when affordable drugs have been proved safe and effective for decades. If you want a new generation of treatments, why neglect sixty years of NF-KB inhibitors that work the same as dexamethasone but have a broad range of strengths. They are most needed as early therapy, early in pandemics.

            Every physician knows the line from the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm.” How much harm has been done to the American public by ignoring two different safe and effective ways to treat viral diseases and ignoring the common pathway viral diseases use to kill - depleting selenium from the immune systems?

            There are crimes of commission, and there are crimes of omission. What kind of crime is it when one allows half a million to die of Covid when those lives could have been saved by providing NF-kBI drugs and selenium supplements in a timely manner? I helped show that adding selenium alone to basic supportive care could reduce mortality by 42.8% in those with terminal Ebola disease in 2014 at the ELWA-2 Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia, Liberia. What greater percentage could we have saved from Covid if we had used both NF-kB inhibitors plus selenium from the start of Covid instead of waiting until people had been hospitalized?        

            Since I returned to the US from Johannesburg, South Africa almost one year ago, I have reviewed hundreds of articles and You Tube videos on Covid and Long Covid. In three years I have heard or seen selenium mentioned only once and NF-kB only once, except in medical journal articles. They are covered up so deeply only a few scientists recognize their value. Yes, there are crimes of commission, crimes of omission, and crimes against humanity. With 500,000 excess deaths, into which category does this scientific negligence fall?

            How can this happen in America, the land that we love? Have We the People now become We the Greedy? Do people’s lives not matter anymore? Do we ignore basic science so we only focus on the science of greed? There used to be laws against war profiteers. This missive is written on the Ides of March. Highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza A virus is primed to jump the species barrier into humans at any moment. Will that happen in weeks, months, or a few years? The failure to learn from HIV, Ebola and Covid augers national calamity when the next pandemic strikes. Serial pandemic failure may end in catastrophe unless we act now.  

            Senator Murray said we need to “End the cycle of crisis and complacency.” We cannot avert the next crisis until we learn to use the broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that have been sitting on the pharmacy shelf all along, masquerading as anti-inflammatory drugs. The complacency is overwhelming - and deadly. Who cares that 500,000 extra American lives were lost to Covid?  Who cares that effective drugs were sitting on the pharmacy shelf as Tony Fauci pretended to plead for early treatments for Covid-19? Who cared that viruses provoke the final death spiral when they deplete enough selenium from people’s bodies to initiate programmed cell death, a cytokine storm, sepsis, multi-organ-failure, and death? Who cares that the Lancet (2000,356;233-41) medical journal reports selenium helps prevent viral infections? Someone must make billions off pandemics by playing scientific ring around the rosy. It ends up Tony Fauci’s friends, Bill Gates, and drug company CEOs.  

            I would cry Shame, but no one can be shamed anymore. All the shame was used up with HIV/AIDS. Now I simply ask, stop the coverup, stop ignoring basic science. Stop the complacency that allows this to continue. To physicians I say, Use What Works. Broad-spectrum NF-kB inhibitors and selenium work. Live up to your Hippocratic Oath and first do no harm by stopping the medical negligence of ignoring how deadly viruses cause the diseases they do. Act to slow disease progression with NF-kBIs and save the seriously ill from dying by using adequate doses of selenium. When H5N1 finally arrives, physicians should want to save their own lives first. Now is the time to recognize how. Tomorrow may be too late. No war is fought using only half the weapons in an army’s arsenal. Why did the NIH fight this one using only half an arsenal and surrender our lives to death by Covid? We should have and can do better. Or else the next pandemic may be ten times worse.   

Scientifically yours,

Howard S. Armistead