Covid Reflection Deficit Disorder

 Dear Professor Zelikow,                                                                                                                               

            I read your book Lessons from the Covid War including chapter 9, “Fighting Back with Drugs and Vaccines”. I would like to offer some history, insight, and analysis in response to the questions raised by the Covid Crisis Group. First however, let me ask a thought-provoking rhetorical question.

            If someone were dying from dehydration, would you try to develop a one-thousand-dollar pill to cure dehydration, or would you give them a bottle of water to drink?  If someone were dying from starvation, would you try to develop a one-thousand-dollar pill to cure starvation, or would you give them food to eat? If someone were dying from lack of oxygen, would you develop a one-thousand-dollar pill to create more oxygen, or would you find an oxygen tank to supply them oxygen? Finally, if someone were dying from a lack of selenium because a virus was draining their body of selenium and their immune system was collapsing because of that, would you try to develop a one-thousand-dollar pill to bring back their immune cells, or would you give them ten-cent selenium tablets to restore the selenium level in their body and reverse the decline in immunity caused by selenium depletion?

            While I am sure all the members of the Covid Crisis Group are familiar with dehydration, starvation, and hypoxia, they are probably less familiar with the severe selenium depletion that occurs in the final stage of most deadly viral diseases including Covid-19. That results when viral Env envelope genes genetically encode selenium containing proteins, causing selenium levels in the body to fall. That eventually causes CD4 counts and the immune system to collapse, followed by massive, programmed cell death, the cytokine storm, sepsis, multi-organ-failure, and death. This same sequence of cause-and-effect happens in terminal AIDS, Ebola, Marburg, Covid-19, and other deadly viral diseases that are caused by enveloped viruses. Usually, when enough selenium can be restored quickly enough, severe disease progression to sepsis can be reversed and a life saved. This is not always possible, but if the correct 2mg daily dosage for severe disease can be administered soon enough, it can save 60-80% of those who would otherwise die. Nuclear-factor kappaB inhibitors (NF-kBIs) also can help against viral disease, but it is the excessive loss of selenium that causes death. When selenium levels fall to 20% below normal a person develops immune deficiency, as in AIDS. When it falls to 30% below normal, they are finished. That is the same as with the loss of water or oxygen. Selenium is the essential key element to preserve life. Supplementing selenium in viral disease is exactly like providing water to someone dying from dehydration. It sounds too simple. Yes, simple but true. Selenium saves lives.

            Acknowledging the principle of Occam’s razor, in science the least complex explanation of a problem is usually the correct explanation. So why does the medical community continue to fail to recognize this pathological progressive loss of selenium that has been repeatedly reported in science? Evidently, ignorance of and disregard for this knowledge is all about money, profits, and careerism. Selenium is not a drug. Neither are water, food, or oxygen. Is that why the medical community ignores the science of selenium? This represents a deadly example of  something that conforms to science but is not aligned with medical dogma or ideology. This fact of science somehow threatens the self-interest of the medical establishment, so they engage in “let’s circle-the-wagons and deny it” groupthink. Is that because selenium is not a patented prescription drug and it is even cheaper than water, food, or oxygen? Or is it because some consider this obscure science? Yes, obscure, arcane science may be controversial because most are not aware of it. But to lose over 1.1 million American lives when more than half of them could have been saved by applying this knowledge? That is absurd, immoral, and violates the Hippocratic Oath. That medically obtuse failure is a national shame. It could even be considered third degree negligent homicide on an international scale. Why do Americans fail to heed such basic science and thereby suffer serial failure, pandemic after pandemic? Who is to blame? The pharmaceutical industry, the medical profession, the NIH and CDC, politicians, or ourselves? How can we fail to be curious enough to demand a full-scale investigation of the neglect of these safer-than-water scientific principles that could have been applied to save hundreds of thousands of lives? Do we need to clinically test water against dehydration? Yes, the science of selenium depletion may be obscure, but it exists and is essential to life.  Are health bureaucrats too lazy or too incompetent to thoroughly examine this notable scientific phenomenon, or do they have an alternative motive in covering it up? Why? Have our health research institutions become too addicted to viral war profiteering to consider affordable therapies that solve the largest chunk of the viral pandemic therapeutic puzzle? If so, why ask about practical solutions at all? Those are so last century. For easy reference, much of the evidence from medical journals articles concerning selenium and Covid-19 is included in the excerpts found in my two books mentioned below.          

            In war, no plan survives initial contact with the enemy. As the United States was supposedly more prepared to successfully tackle a pandemic head-on than any other country, what happened? Friendly fire? The fog of war? Tragic oversights? War profiteering? Denial and utter confusion in the White House? Failure to innovate or even try to think outside the box? That should remind us of the parable about military logistics of how to lose a war. “For missing a nail to shoe the horse, the horse could not draw the cannon to battle. For lack of that cannon the battle was lost, and because of that the war was lost.” Yes, one miniscule but absolutely critical piece of science was ignored, and 1.1 million Americans died. As General George S. Patton said, “If we are all thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.” Obviously, I must be the one thinking differently from the others about a simple innovative solution 100% based in science. That is because I have been an independent self-funded researcher examining this problem for three decades, unconstrained by institutional directives or financial constraints. Numerous other scientists know the powerful benefits of selenium against viral disease, but they are busy with their careers. Their advice about selenium and Covid has been published in medical journals and is excerpted in my books. The peer reviewed advice was likewise ignored. Do the scientists at the NIH not read medical journal articles concerning the hot issues of the day, or do they ignore the general science because they have an alternative, more profitable agenda?   

In March 2020 I emailed Clifford Lane, Anthony Fauci’s long-time deputy at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease – NIAID - to remind him of an available partial therapeutic solution to the looming pandemic. Clifford Lane and Anthony Fauci ignored my earnest report of the applicable science. Selenium is neither high tech, nor highly profitable. Neither is water or oxygen. They are all too simple. Once again, the NIAID did not want to interfere with the drugs they had in the development pipeline that the NIH would eventually benefit from financially. Their protection for new expensive patented drugs against cheaper practical effective options has become a recurring theme at the NIH.

After thirty-three years of studying these issues, I understand the secret of how viruses cause death. I put most the pieces of the viral disease puzzle together years ago, but only Covid-related research reported the viral protease’s dramatic direct physical assault on antioxidants. Although I engaged in good old American problem-solving, I lacked the necessary platform to project this knowledge from South Africa where I was living at the time. Lane and Fauci ignored the sound scientific advice contained in the essays attached to my emails to them. Meanwhile they repeatedly falsely decried the lack of early therapy for Covid. As a deadly pandemic gathered strength, why did they ignore the basics of how cells and viruses interact? It was the height of irresponsibility and institutional conceit, but it represents a pattern of behavior previously demonstrated in HIV/AIDS and Ebola. They lied to the American public that no early therapies existed to help against Covid leaving the door wide open for those who waited to confuse the public with false claims about hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and other quasi- and pseudoscientific interventions.         

Biologists call selenium the universally protective element. In medical journals some scientists refer to selenium as the miracle mineral. I call selenium the strongest immune booster and therefore the strongest thing to help delay carcinogenesis and cancer progression. It acts as both a broad-spectrum antiviral, and a life saver.

Sometimes I also refer to selenium as a woman’s supplement because it has benefits against many female related conditions. Pharmaceutical companies think of selenium as potential competition. They would prefer knowledge about the broad-based health benefits of selenium not see the light of day. Perhaps that is why those in the Covid Crisis Group are mostly unfamiliar with it. The pharmaceutical industrial complex has tried to hide selenium behind their magic disappearing curtain. Instead of “Be Prepared”, their motto must be “Discuss no selenium, test no selenium, prove no selenium, and cover-up positive results of selenium trials when you can, if you cannot prevent clinical trials of selenium from taking place in the first place.” Big Pharma only wants to test potentially hugely profitable patentable drugs. Their paradigm does not consider replenishing the critical essential trace element that viruses deplete from the body, thus causing sickness and death. They stick with conventional, highly profitable research pathways and ignore the arcane science few non-specialists have the slightest idea about. For physicians it is easy to deny something most doctors know nothing about. They deny this so they do not seem uninformed. It is easier to claim that this has not been proved to the highest standard. Still, like the proverbial frog in boiling water, they fail to be proactive and call for clinical trials to test selenium or use this extremely safe supplement to help save lives. It would be so easy to do so. Meanwhile the United States lost 1.1 million lives in the War on Covid, more than all the lives lost in battle in all the wars in American history. How smart was that? Over three decades ago Ukrainian doctors used selenium to treat radiation poisoning after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. They did not need the NIH to tell them to. They just used logic based on scientific knowledge. Ukrainian scientists knew selenium is an antidote to both heavy metal and radiation poisoning. As a broad-spectrum anti-viral and key to preventing death from viral disease, selenium should be included in the American national strategic medicine reserve as well as on the WHO international essential drug list. Do Americans need a Chernobyl to realize that? We just experienced a viral Chernobyl. Are we slow learners? Who is to  blame for that? Where is critical thinking when we need it most ?     

Since I survived the War on AIDS 1981-1996, and the War on Ebola 2014-2016, as a viral world war veteran and defense analyst attached to the viral intelligence agency (VIA), please allow me to add my perspective and analysis to what went wrong in the War on Covid-19. Most of these insights and supporting references are found in my two books Understanding Covid-19, How 500,000 American Lives Could Have Been Saved, and Dear Bill Gates, How to End Serial Pandemic Failure, HIV-1 to Covid-19 – available from Amazon.com.

             Every living thing needs some kind of protection to survive, not just in times of war. There is a reason biologists call selenium the universally protective element. In human cells, selenium constitutes the active part of antioxidants that cells use to clean and detoxify themselves and to protect against oxidative damage. All aspects of the multifaceted immune response require selenium to function properly and protect human life from invading microbes. Selenium is the strongest thing to increase CD4 count, the standard measure of immune function. Likewise, viruses need selenium to form the selenoproteins that compose their protective outer envelopes, without which they would quicky perish once released into the hostile intercellular environment. A person can appreciate the critical importance of a viruses’ protective envelope through the following analogy.

            Automobiles have an outer body structure composed of molded sheet metal, composite material, or some type of plastic. Without that roof, hood, trunk lid, and side panels, a car would not last long or be fit for purpose. Likewise, humans and all animals have skin that protects them from the outside world. Without their skin, no one would live long. Most deadly viruses also require an outside envelope to protect their RNA or DNA genetic computer programs from damage. What are viral envelopes composed of? They consist of selenoproteins that require selenium molecules to be formed. Where do viruses including HIV, Zika, Ebola, and SARS-CoV-2 get that selenium? They acquire it from antioxidants where most of the selenium in the cells they infect is located. When viruses attack and destroy antioxidants to extract the selenium molecules they contain so they can repurpose them for their own replication, they upset the prooxidant/antioxidant balance in the cell. That eventually makes cells dysfunctional and ends with programmed cell death. When viral replication escalates, selenium is gradually depleted from the body and immune system. Then CD4 immune cell counts fall in tandem with the loss of selenium and the death cascade commences with widespread cell death, the cytokine storm, sepsis, multi-organ-failure, and death. Replace that lost selenium quickly enough and in most cases this sequence can be reversed. Is this a cure? No. Cure is a loaded word. The combination of disease, age, and comorbidities are unique to an individual, so supplemental selenium cannot save every life. But if provided in a timely manner, adequate selenium supplementation can save at least half those who currently die from severe Covid, just as providing adequate water to people who are dying from dehydration will save most lives. Research demonstrates that those with severe Covid who retain enough selenium live. Those who do not perish.      

            Was what Americans went through really a War on Covid, or on the therapeutic front was it a confusing, incompetent, bumbling, misinformation distorted sitzkrieg? In The Art of War the 5^th Century BC Chinese General Sun Tzu advises to, “Know your enemy”, and “Know yourself.” That is why I studied viruses and the immune system for over thirty years. What was the last nation that won a military victory when they failed to use their best weapon against their enemy? Put another way, what was the last nation that won a military victory when they refused to use two of their best weapons against an enemy? Certainly not Ukraine. Ukrainians use all the effective weaponry they can get their hands on. They have a will to win. Unfortunately the United States lost their part of the First World War on Covid because they failed to employ not just one, but two of their best weapons against the novel zoonotic viral invader. They engaged in unproductive groupthink, forgoing innovative solutions like the one I emailed to Dr Lane at the NIH, NIAID. Ignoring obvious clues in the medical journal literature like those reported in my books hollowed-out and delayed the national therapeutic response. That was irrational and self-serving on the part of the War on Covid (WoC) General Staff at the NIH. Their addiction to trickle-down pharmaceutical patent royalties trumped science. It represents a barely discernable form of quasi-legal bureaucratic corruption. That caused what should have been an avoidable and therefor unforgivable massive death toll of American citizens. Because their research paradigm was laser focused on new drug development to the exclusion of all else, they were not prepared with any early therapies. Then they ignored the science of selenium and NF-kBIs that could have provided early intervention and lied about the lack of such therapies. History will record this infamous failure.   

            Yes, selenium is the number one weapon against severe deadly viral diseases because it is the only one that replaces the essential trace element that viruses deplete to trigger the bio-immunological cascade to the proximate cause of death – multi-organ-failure. By adjusting dosage based on the disease stage, selenium can be used effectively from day one of infection until the last day of recovery. Supplemental selenium tablets are extremely safe and are not contraindicated to any other medications. But a much larger class of drugs exists that are also effective broad-spectrum antivirals. They also can be used in different doses at different stages of Covid, and against other viral diseases. These are nuclear-factor kappaB inhibitors – NF-kBIs.

            One powerful NF-kB inhibitor that was used in the WoC is the steroid dexamethasone. Dexamethasone has a rating of (210) – two hundred and ten times as strong an anti-inflammatory as aspirin that is rated (1). It is also 210 times as strong an antiviral drug as aspirin. The question is, why did physicians only use dexamethasone when more than a dozen other steroid and non-steroid antiviral NF-kBI drugs exist that are variously potent and can be used at different stages of viral disease? That is like using only a single caliber of bullet or artillery shell in a conflict. What sane military would do that? NF-kBIs come in a broad range of strengths from (1) for aspirin, to (567) for Tamoxifen. Why use only dexamethasone when there are at least fifteen to choose from – both steroid and non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs – NSAIDs? The beauty of NF-kBIs is they also can be used from day one of infection to slow down the viral express train, either alone or in combination with other drugs including the protease inhibitor Paxlovid. The sooner the viral infection train can be slowed, the sooner the immune system has a chance to catch up and regain control of run-away inflammation and viral replication, and reduce collateral damage to cells, tissues, and organs. That tissue damage is a major underlying cause of Long Covid. Even though Paxlovid is contraindicated to many other drugs, with a doctor’s advice, people should take it when necessary. However since Paxlovid is not right for everyone, physicians should be informed about other effective therapeutic options and how and when to combine them. In medicine, one size does not always fit all.  Paxlovid can only be taken for five days and must be used early in infection. Appropriate follow-on and complementary antiviral therapies should be advised. As with many drugs, the concomitant use of selenium may reduce Paxlovid’s side effects. So what exactly is NF-kB?

            NF-kB is a human cellular protein classified as a replication factor. It is the primary stimulant for both viral replication and inflammation. Inhibit or reduce NF-kB and you reduce both inflammation and viral replication. As most physicians can attest, early therapy is the best therapy. Numerous NF-kBI medicines can be used from day one to retard the exponential acceleration of the viral train. Besides aspirin (1), among others they include ibuprofen (1.6) naproxen (6), diclofenac (14.9), resveratrol (67.5), curcumin (131) and celecoxib (236). Some, including aspirin, also reduce blood clot aggregation, as selenium does. The loss of selenium causes blood clots to form. With Ebola, Marburg, and SARS-CoV-2 selenium depletion also causes circulatory-system-wide distributed intravascular coagulation – DIC.       

            Recognizing the importance of the NF-kB protein that was discovered in 1986 as a primary stimulant to viral replication, in 1992, John Fahey, director of the UCLA arm of the Multi-centered AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) and Co-chair of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) meeting in Washington DC stood before three hundred AIDS researchers and pleaded, “If we could just find something to inhibit NF-kB!” At that time people with HIV only had reverse transcriptase inhibitors (RTIs) like AZT and 3Tc to fight AIDS. Adding NF-kBIs to RTIs would have kept many more people alive for longer, but we never tested NF-kBIs against HIV except when Dr Donald Kotler of Columbia University tested the aspirin analogue asacol, 5-ASA, against HIV. Kotler showed aspirin is approximately 65% as effective as AZT in inhibiting HIV replication. Later, working with Dr Elopy Sibanda in Zimbabwe, I helped show that a moderate dose of aspirin alone could increase CD4 count twice as high and for twice the time above baseline – for one year - as AZT could. But who would possibly prefer a safer, more effective, three-dollar-a-month therapy when they could have a more toxic, less effective, $1,000 a month pill? The pharmaceutical industrial complex certainly did not want easily affordable options. They still do not. The moral of the story? Pharmaceutical prestidigitation and corruption reap MEGA sized profits. Just do not look too closely behind the Big Pharma curtain to see the more than one million dollars a day they spend lobbying Congress. The NIH chose patentable reverse transcriptase inhibitors and totally ignored the huge potential of adding NF-kB inhibitors. As a result, tens of thousands of people with HIV in the US died sooner than they should have. More expensive newer drugs always win out against older cheaper drugs, no matter the comparative or potential benefits of one versus the other or how many people will die because additional therapies that work via a different mechanism of action were ignored.     

            Ask one hundred physicians if they have ever heard of selenium or NF-kB. Close to ninety-nine out of a hundred will say yes to both. Next ask one hundred doctors if they have ever heard if selenium or NF-kBIs can treat viral infections. 95-99% will shake their heads “no”. Then ask them if they themselves have ever prescribed selenium or NF-kBIs against viral infection. Except for dexamethasone, that most physicians think of as a steroid or strong anti-inflammatory rather than an NF-kBI, almost all of them will say no. Many will comment, “Oh, there is no proof they work.” That is like saying there is no proof anti-inflammatory drugs are effective against inflammation, or there is no proof giving water to dehydrated people works. One might ask where is the controlled clinical trial of water against dehydration? What does the Corcoran Collaboration say about water and dehydration? Dexamethasone is proof NF-kBIs are effective. Yes, there is plenty of science showing how both selenium and NF-kBIs work against viruses. It is widely scattered throughout medical journal literature, like precious golden needles in a haystack. Personally I have also seen selenium work almost as quickly in advanced AIDS patients in Africa as water does in dehydration. Yet I can only concretely report what is published in medical journals and then use logic to put two plus two together. Both inflammation and viral replication are moderated through the same NF-kB protein. Thus, by inhibiting the NF-kB replication factor, all anti-inflammatory drugs also work as antiviral drugs. Who knew that? Why not? Anti-inflammatory drugs do double duty as antiviral drugs. Should physicians know this? Apparently, they do not. But it is indisputable. It is established science. Like two sides of a coin these actions are indivisible. Once activated, it is impossible to separate the activity of an NF-kB protein as both proinflammatory and pro-replicative. QED.     

            However not every bit of research makes it into a scientific journal. A case in point is the large study of selenium in conjunction with a three-drug HAART (highly active anti-retroviral therapy) combination, plus one 200mcg tablet of selenium daily conducted by Harvard University in Nigeria in 2004-05. That controlled clinical trial in advanced AIDS patients with an average of 50 CD4 count at baseline showed that in 170 patients receiving the additional selenium, CD4 count increased by 140% more than it did with the matched control arm of 170 who were on HAART alone. Adding 200mcg selenium daily to HAART also tripled the increase in hemoglobin compared to the HAART-only group, and significantly reduced opportunistic infections and hospitalizations. Although this was reported in an abstract at the 2006 Montreal AIDS Conference, this immensely important research was never reported in a medical journal article, or in a major presentation at that Montreal Conference. The failure to report those phenomenally beneficial results contributed to millions of premature deaths from HIV in Africa. Now it has directly contributed to the unprecedented death toll in the United States during the WoC. Scientific coverups cost lives - lots of them. However they are not always the lives of the people those who conduct the cover up think it may cost. Coverups can boomerang.   

            Of course I reminded Clifford Lane and through him Anthony Fauci about selenium and NF-kBIs in the essays I attached to my emails to Dr Lane in March 2020. They ignored that reminder, just as Tony Fauci did when I personally handed him information about Dr Kotler’s promising research on asacol at the 1994 International AIDS Conference in Yokohama, Japan. Who cares about affordable effective drugs against viral disease when you can promote much more highly toxic, exorbitantly expensive drugs that don’t work any better or sometimes not even as well as cheaper off-patent medicines? Someone must make money during a war? Why not pharmaceutical viral war profiteers?  If they do not make enough money, they pay to manipulate changes in the law and regulations so they can. 

             Lessons from the Covid War raised several questions for which I may have answers. First I will make a question/phrase salad from your first chapter “From Tragedy to Possibility”. Here goes: “reflection deficit disorder”, “try to be more analytical”, “How could we do better?”, “our institutions …did not have adequate practical strategies”, “even programs designed better to gain marginal advantages…would still yield enormous benefits.”, “Is America still capable of solving big problems?”, “Real policy work is…more about the ‘how’.”, “require concrete solutions for definite and extremely complicated questions.”, “Real strategy…is the theory of the how.”, “It is a culture that can become insular, if the researchers...judge only by their own cultural standards for methods, insight, and value.”, “It can become too insular and clannish.”, “America and its officials had once been famous…for the quality of their public problem-solving.”, “who could seem to do almost anything…can-do-spirit.” Now, allow me to take a few bites of that analysis seeking salad.

            When almost all financial incentives augur against discovering affordable remedies and are directed toward high-profit-margin new drug development, anything approximating an old-school innovative, simple, practical solution will be aggressively ignored, suppressed, or covered up by those who stand to profit from higher priced drugs. This therapeutic delay confuses the public because in a pandemic situation when there are no effective treatments, hucksters emerge from the woodwork promising faux instant solutions such as hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, Chinese medicine, or angel’s root tea. I witnessed this phenomenon of false misleading hope for therapies forty years ago with HIV/AIDS. Most people that propose these ersatz remedies recently jumped on the wannabe therapeutic bandwagon to promote whatever drug or herb formulation they have some familiarity with that sounds vaguely exotic but somewhat plausible. Like Trump, they heard about it from a friend of a friend who swears by it. However viruses are not parasites, and they are not worms. Hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin do not exist in every cell in the body, nor do they provide the key component of antioxidants. They are not the essential chemical element influencing all aspects of immune function. Only one protective element does all that. And molecules of only one mineral element help construct the protective envelope sheathing of viruses. It takes years to fully comprehend how cells and viruses interface with the immune system and what key element is their common denominator. Although physicians study diseases and drugs, most clinicians do not intensively study immunology, virology, and the ubiquitous element selenium that ties these subjects together. However the above-mentioned financial incentives have served to cover up the impressive benefits of selenium therapy. Prime examples are the 2004-05 Nigerian clinical trial of three-hundred-forty advanced AIDS patients described above, and the quick informal clinical trial of selenium against Ebola in Liberia detailed below. The moral is, whatever research Big Pharma covers up and obscures the science of, may eventually cause untold damage to our society and national economy. It certainly did with Covid.  

            In Liberia, in 2014, Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, Dr Jerry Brown, showed that 1.2mg daily of the sodium selenite the Ministry of Health asked me to bring from South Africa, added to the WHO’s inadequate standard of care, could reduce the mortality rate of Ebola by 42.8%. The NIH and CDC ignored that information in order to preclude potential competition for the four Ebola drugs they then had in development that they eventually tested in the Eastern Congo in 2018-19. In 2019, one of those drugs proved beneficial - remdesivir. But remdesivir is expensive and needs to be administered intravenously, not the most practical solution for Ebola, a disease that primarily affects people in rural Equatorial Africa. That is another example of how financial incentives clearly overwhelm and block more practical, affordable solutions. Unfortunately thousands of people died in the West African Ebola epidemic as the practical partial therapeutic solution with selenium was smothered beneath a blanket of NIH institutional self-interest. Selenium could have saved each additional life from Ebola at the cost of $12 if they had used it. That was not a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. It was a case of the expensive and impractical being the enemy of the cheap and practical. As always with the NIH, cheap and practical lost – as were lives.    

            The same thing happened with asacol and NF-kBIs in New York when in 1990 further planned  research was halted on NSAID broad-spectrum antivirals against HIV after Dr Kotler was advised additional research effort would not need to be expended on that line of inquiry because protease inhibitors would solve the AIDS Crisis. That research baby was smothered in the crib. The failure to follow up on that promising line of research cost millions of lives in Africa as it prevented the investigation and implementation of an extensive class of affordable antiviral drugs against HIV. That failure to advance medical knowledge delayed effective antiviral drugs from arriving in Africa by a whole decade. However it safeguarded the continued exclusive use of expensive but relatively toxic drugs like AZT in the US, precluding the addition of a much safer, cheaper, eventually more effective class of NF-kBIs. After those three coverups of broad-spectrum antivirals in Nigeria, Liberia, and New York, the failure to disseminate those research results stunted the knowledge base in the medical community about these two antiviral therapeutic approaches, and greatly contributed to the higher mortality rates of Americans in the WoC. This failure will be repeated in the next deadly viral pandemic unless the medical community can begin to wrap its heads around these two, safe, available, affordable, effective, partial solutions to the problem of pandemic viral disease and death. Gargantuan financial incentives distort and cover up more affordable beneficial science. This lack of knowledge also kills hundreds of thousands more people than necessary during pandemics – millions worldwide. A conservative estimate is that if we had applied both NF-kBIs and selenium in the recent WoC, 700,000 American lives could have been saved, and they could have prevented millions of Long Covid cases. How many more million extra lives will be lost in the next pandemic? It could be many millions if H5N1 influenza causes it. If the current, extremely high H5N1 mortality rate of 40-50% does not decline, it could be tens of millions of additional deaths. What is the net cost of war profiteering by the pharmaceutical industrial complex and their coverups of NF-kBIs and selenium? Those costs include not just trillions of dollars of the American government’s pandemic budget. It potentially includes losing millions of lives and sapping a nation of its economic vitality. Pride in America’s pandemic preparedness preceded it fall in the War on Covid.                        

            The previous several paragraphs are my replies to “reflection deficit disorder”, “try to be more analytical” and How could we do better?” It also answers “institutions…did not have adequate practical strategies”, “programs designed to gain marginal advantage” and “Is America still capable of solving big problems”, as well as “policy work is…more about the how” and “concrete solutions for extremely complicated questions.” It touches on the medical establishment that “can become too insular and clannish” and the “can-do-spirit”. Unfortunately, the former American can-do-spirit has morphed into the corporatist competitive coverup-spirit. That includes the coverup of asacol/5-ASA in New York in 1990, selenium’s benefits against AIDS in Nigeria in 2005, and selenium’s ability to reduce Ebola deaths in Liberia in 2014. Those therapeutic coverups led directly to the excessive mortality rate disaster of 2020 through 2022. How sad that over 700,000 lives could have been saved but the medical community was left in the dark after the bright lights of therapeutic hope had been smothered and then extinguished by the combined forces of the pharmaceutical industrial complex and their handmaidens at the National Institutes of Health, NIAID - aka Anthony Fauci and company.        

            Now let us prepare a second phrase/sentence salad from chapter 9, “Fighting Back with Drugs and Vaccines”. As I leaf through this chapter I am struck by the sentence, “In 2020 when Covid hit, the few broad-spectrum antiviral medicines already on the shelf did not help much.” I am intensely curious. What broad- spectrum antivirals are you referring to? Aspirin? Tamiflu? Devil’s root extract? What could those be? I would appreciate knowing what broad-spectrum antivirals medicines you are writing about because you did not specify, and I am not aware of them. If possible, please inform me. Curiosity is the instigator of scientific exploration and discovery. How do those supposedly broad-spectrum antivirals work? What is their mechanism of action? Enquiring minds want to know.

            Proceeding to the chapter 9 phrase salad. “trials can be accomplished in a few weeks”, “They tried anti-inflammatory drugs to ease the body’s reaction to the virus.”, “powerful, immunosuppressive steroid dexamethasone dramatically reduced the death rate of hospitalized patients…by as much as a third.”, “the United States was not able to create a system that could test existing, repurposed drugs as definitively as the Recovery program did in Britain.”, “summer of 2020 there was another bubble of enthusiasm…for using …convalescent plasma”, “this treatment also turned out to be ineffective”, “With a deadly infectious disease, people, and governments, usually want drugs fast, and in enormous quantities.”, “think of health as a security issue.”, “a promising lead”, “prove a concept”, “If a treatment appears promising”, “since a pandemic kills thousands and costs billions everyday, the return on investment, by almost any measure, might far exceed the returns from other national security spending.”, “The two most promising treatment approaches to emerge by the autumn of 2020 were monoclonal antibodies and protease inhibitors.”, “monoclonals can become obsolete”, “it is not enough to evaluate and buy the weapons. People have to be prepared to use them effectively.”, “Pfizer’s revenue in 2021 was more than $80 billion, doubling its 2020 revenue.”, “gradual loss of vaccine effectiveness against new variants.”, “deadliest phase of the pandemic began in the autumn of 2020”, “build a portfolio of medical countermeasures…the national biological security effort,”, “Deep knowledge from long-term basic research”.

            Where do I start? How about “deep knowledge from long-term basic research” is what I have been accumulating for thirty-three years by following references in medical journal articles as I searched for the scattered pieces of the scientific puzzle to answer the pandemic enigma, wrapped in a riddle, hidden within a mystery somewhere deep in the stacks of the USC and UCLA medical school libraries. The ultimate question was, how can we control, or at least positively manipulate the immune system? It has been a hero’s quest.

Almost two decades after watching the passive genocide of 500,000 from AIDS in Zambia, I watched as 1.1 million Americans died of Covid-19, knowing that most of them would have survived if they and their physicians had understood and applied the simple science related to NF-kBIs, selenium and viruses. The greatest medical failure in American history highlights high-level bureaucratic ineptitude, corrupted through corporate capture that redirected the primary purpose of the NIH away from improving the health of the American people to insuring the excessive profit margins of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. Some call this corporate welfare. This deadly conflict of interest should never be allowed to happen again. It begs to be fully investigated and exposed by a non-partisan commission.            

            Of course small comparative clinical trials pertaining to pandemic viral death can be completed within a few months at most if a system is established to do that. AIDS activists called for small competitive investigative clinical trials of potentially effective interventions in the early 1980s. That appeal for a practical fast-track research approach was ignored by Fauci and the NIH. They focused on the almost worthless AZT that overall, was not even as good as aspirin against HIV disease. That fast-track clinical trial methodology was finally successfully implemented almost four decades later with the Recovery trials by the British National Health Service. In Liberia in 2014 we were also able to complete a rapid, informal clinical trial of selenium within three weeks that proved the concept of using selenium against advanced, severe, highly pathogenic Ebola virus disease. However if clinicians test only prescription or non-prescription drugs and overlook the mineral supplement selenium, they miss one of the most effective potential medications. If they test therapies at the incorrect dosage, they also can fail to show results. By using only a teaspoon, researchers can prove water does not cure dehydration. Dosage is key.

In 2020 when researchers screened 10,000 different chemicals against SAR-CoV-2, the most effective inhibitor of viral replication was a selenium-based off-patent drug that was no longer being manufactured - Ebselen. The NIH certainly could not have missed noticing that! Instead, they ignored that published laboratory science and proverbially stabbed taxpaying American citizens in the back. So what good does testing do if the NIH then ignores the results? Unfortunately, that seems to have become their modus operandi. If it is not NIH sponsored research, it is meaningless because they do not gain trickle-down patent royalties and they frequently ignore successful findings, as they did in Liberia and with selenium and with Ebselen against Covid. That continuing exclusive attitude is a national security threat. Everyone now knows the body count.          

            The powerful NF-kBI dexamethasone (210) is used only after a person with Covid has been hospitalized. However page 48 of my book Dear Bill Gates lists nine other weaker NF-kBIs that could have been used to slow the viral train’s progress before it arrived at Dexamethasone Hospital Station. Yes, the original “miracle drug” aspirin rated at (1) and ibuprofen (1.6) are relatively weak. However naproxen (6) indomethacin (9.5) and diclofenac (14.9) are moderately strong, and resveratrol (67.5) and curcumin (131) are even stronger. After initial infection, viral replication increases exponentially. Like a train that gains speed exponentially, the sooner one starts to slow the train, the sooner it flattens the curve of exponential growth of viral load. That is why early therapy is the best therapy. Why should a person proceed to one million viral load before starting to take dexamethasone when they could have limited the viral train to 10,000 or 100,000 viral load and stayed out of the hospital by inhibiting replication from the start? Dexamethasone is not just about suppressing the immune system. It is about suppressing viral replication. There are two sides to the NF-kBI protein coin. Those cannot be separated. But if we look only at one side of NF-kB activity, as we have in the past, we are only using half our brain and half the possibility of understanding and controlling viral disease. It takes the immune system four days to rachet up to its full potential. If we can apply the brakes on the viral train from the start, it gives the immune system a better chance of regaining control. However the faster that runaway viral train gets going, the more damage it does, and the harder it is to slow it down. By ignoring the science I have reported here, and in my books, US Covid health policy ended up increasing hospitalizations, increasing tissue damage, increasing development of Long Covid syndrome, increasing need for ventilation, and increasing deaths. But for the lack of a nail – or early therapy - the battle and war were lost.       

            Tony Fauci has been fascinated with the potential for monoclonal antibodies for over thirty years. Likewise, Bill Gates has been intrigued by convalescent serum for at least twenty years. Both treatment approaches are awkward and expensive, requiring intravenous (IV) administration in clinics that the US healthcare system is not set up to conduct on a massive scale – much less in Africa.

            Monoclonal antibodies are potentially a great idea for fighting viruses that do not mutate quickly. Unfortunately, SARS-CoV-2 mutates twice as fast as influenza. By the time monoclonal antibodies can be manufactured and distributed, the original antibody the medicine contains will be much less effective against the new variants. Convalescent serum is even far more problematic. Based on a concept originated in the 1880s, convalescent serum must be extracted and filtered from whole blood from volunteers who already have recovered from a disease. Then the plasma must be stored, refrigerated, screened for other diseases, and then administered by IV to difficult to handle Ebola patients or Covid-19 patients. That is fine in theory - if it worked. But it is hugely complicated and extremely expensive by non-American standards. When used in the early 1980s against AIDS, it only spread additional diseases because the plasma had not been properly screened for other pathogens. This strategy has never proved successful, despite the millions Gates has spent researching it. The proof of concept does not exist. However it served as a useful distraction when the Gates Foundation was offering $3.7 million to conduct a clinical trial of convalescent serum in Liberia in 2014, conveniently distracting and muddying the waters after cheap and easy selenium therapy had proved to reduce the mortality rate of Ebola viral disease (EVD) by 42.8%. If Dr Brown had used the proper dose of 2.0mg selenium daily, the morality rate should have fallen by approximately 65%.      

            When millions of lives and the health of a nation and its economy are at stake, health does become a national security issue. What could be a more promising lead than when one chemical turns out to be the most effective out of 10,000 screened in a laboratory? This was only a secret if the people at the NIH shut their eyes, closed their ears, and found the entreaties of their private partners in the pharmaceutical industrial complex more persuasive than their duty to put the health of the American people first. In the end the NIH decision makers served their own institutional interests by protecting their plans for new drug development to gain future royalties based on the profits their private partners make selling high priced newly patented drugs like Paxlovid. One recent NIH royalty check from one vaccine maker came to $200 million. Was that trade off worth it for American taxpayers? What about for those who died of Covid-19 or the many millions left with Long Covid?   

            Proof of concept? Promising? The proof of concept of NF-kBIs has been demonstrated at both the low and high ends with asacol-5-ASA (1) against HIV in 1990 in New York, and now with dexamethasone (210) against Covid-19. Selenium has provided its proof of concept again in Nigeria in 2005, Liberia in 2014, Rwanda in 2016, and more than a dozen other times in smaller clinical trials and investigative studies before and after 1997. By that year its benefits against HIV infection had been conclusively documented. Selenium’s specific promise against Covid was clearly demonstrated in the 2020 molecular screening trial that showed the off-patent selenium-based drug Ebselen was rated the best out of 10,000 chemicals for inhibiting SARS-CoV-2. But best out of 10,000 evidently was not good enough for the NIH to pursue because it was selenium-based and already off-patent. Thus, there was no pot of gold at the end of the drug development rainbow. Besides, the patent was owned by a Japanese company, so why bother? Critical thinking, practical innovations, and can-do-spirit are for Ukrainians, not for the American bureaucratic or corporate elite. Who cares about us the people? Are we just ciphers.  

            One critical factor not highlighted in Lessons from the Covid War was the lack of any early therapy for Covid. That was belatedly resolved two years into the crisis with the protease inhibitor Paxlovid. However protease inhibitors (PIs) like Paxlovid are not broad-spectrum antivirals. They target a specific viruses’ enzyme, not cellular based factors as selenium and NF-kBIs do. In another pandemic with another virus, there is a high probability Paxlovid will not be effective. Researchers will need to start over from scratch again taking several years to get a new drug to market. So with Covid-19 two therapeutic gaps existed. Those were the lack of an early therapy to use as soon as the virus entered the United States, and the lack of an early therapy to use from the moment someone became infected. Selenium and NF-kBIs filled both those gaps. They will again when the next novel virus washes ashore. Currently scientists should be working to discover a protease inhibitor for the H5N1 influenza virus. H5N1 appears to be in the process of jumping the species barrier. Scientists can probably develop an H5N1 protease inhibitor drug for humans now based on the current avian strain of the virus. Boy Scouts advise – Be Prepared.

            Although I am no expert on vaccines, it appears that booster shots may not be quite as important as we once thought. Although Covid vaccines were not nearly as effective as hoped in preventing initial infection or preventing onward transmission, they were highly effective in preventing severe disease and death and cut the chance of Long Covid by half. Vaccines work by providing antibody protection, as well as through long lasting T-cell protection. Although antibody levels wane significantly after about six months, T-cell protection endures. Therefore getting the initial vaccine shot is by far the most important because that establishes enduring T-cell protection. Selenium supplements also provide some protection from infection as the Lancet medical journal (2000;356:233-41) reports they reduce the chance of viral infection. Although they may not completely prevent initial infection, selenium tablets boost CD4 count and therefore enhance the body’s production of antibodies. That is because CD4 cells provide the impulse for B-cells to transform into antibody producing plasma cells. Thus selenium boosts normal immune defenses and keeps them at a higher level of alertness, ready to take on the challenge of any new viral invader or other pathogen. That is why many people take selenium supplements on a regular basis – to reduce the incidence of colds, flu, and some other disease conditions. Selenium reduces the incidence of and shortens the duration and severity of viral infections when they do occur, so this should hold true for Covid as well. Selenium supplementation can complement the use of vaccines in increasing the robustness of individual and herd immunity.

            Considering the Covid “reflection deficit disorder” your book points out, I must mention that although newly developed pharmaceutical drugs are an important part of any pandemic solution, they often take years to develop. We must determine other interventions that can be used as first responders. That is where selenium and NF-kBIs come in. It is absurd to ignore what cells and viruses are composed of. Just as humans need water and oxygen, cells and viruses both need selenium to survive. Viruses are selenium bandits. If people allow viruses to get away with robbing their cells of it, they can kill. If we replace that lost selenium, just as one would replace water or oxygen, then people survive. However if public health institutions like the NIH and CDC refuse to think outside the new drug development box and fail to analyze exactly what is happening at the cellular level, America will repeatedly fall victim to the same historic mistake. That is serial pandemic failure. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a difference result? How many more millions of lives must we sacrifice for such a short-sighted, tragically inhumane approach to science? How many trillion dollars must the federal government waste due to the boomerang effect from the bipolar priorities engendered by the welfare agency for the pharmaceutical industry that in turn pays politicians to write them self-serving laws and regulations. Obviously, the current research paradigm is far out of alignment from a people-centric point of view. It has cost far too much in lives and treasure and has left us with the long tail of Long Covid. Something needs to change.                           

            The United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that all people should be allowed to benefit from the advances of science. It is difficult for them to do so when scientific breakthroughs are not reported, but instead covered-up and smothered under the blanket of pharm-industry distraction, obfuscation, and disinformation. Honesty and the pursuit of truth in science has been replaced by the corruption of corporate, institutional, and personal greed. While Covid-19 made Big Pharma multi-billions in profits, it cost the American taxpayers trillions to try to overcome this existential national crisis. If knowledge related to selenium and NF-kBIs had been implemented from the start of this pandemic and from the beginning of personal infection, the cost to society easily could have been cut in half.        

            The NIH’s continuing prejudice in refusing to accept the simple scientific fact that viral diseases like AIDS, Ebola, Marburg, and Covid kill by depleting the body and immune system of selenium is extraordinarily costly. Whether one calculates the excess cost to government of the pandemic at $4.2 trillion or $5.0 trillion, has there ever been a more costly medical prejudice? How is it even possible that scientists at the NIH did not realize that NF-kBIs are not merely anti-inflammatories? How could they fail to recognize those same drugs are antiviral when NF-kB is technically known as a replication factor? What do they think it is replicating - jelly bellies for Ronald Reagan in heaven? This intellectual corruption is based on the bureaucratic financial scheme promoted by Fauci as public-private partnerships. That has sold the American people down the river so that the NIH can gather pennies on the dollar in royalties through its coordinated corporate capture by the pharmaceutical industry. NIH scientists receive fat bonuses through legitimate back door schemes that most Americans are not aware of. That includes Americans who have died, accumulated monumental hospital bills, lost their health after being on ventilators, or are left alone to battle Long Covid.  

            Anthony Fauci and the NIH institutional culture have greedily applied the concept of trickle-down corporate profits and have disregarded what is best to protect the public health of the American people. Their agreements with the pharmaceutical industry grease the sleds of new drug development while at the same time greasing the sleds of the hospital and funeral home industries. Who ends up paying the price? The American taxpayer – insurance companies – and the health of the American people - in some cases for decades to come. 

            As a kid I learned to sing “God Bless America.” Now I ask, “Why hast thou forsaken America.” The movie “Wall Street” espoused the ethos, “Greed is good.” Yes, greed is good for some pharmaceutical executives and for a few scientists. However the ending of one patriotic song rejoices. “This land was made for you and me.” Today it seems this land is no longer made for you and me. It is made for an ever-expanding grand chasm of wealth and health disparities between the haves and have nots. If you are lucky, enough, or acquired enough hundreds of millions in pharmaceutical stock like Bill Gates, you end up on one side of the chasm. If you do not, you end up on the other – or you end up with Long Covid, or dead.   

            The pathology of medical research priorities at the NIH is critically advanced and hurting the American public. One can literally say it is killing us. It endangers each person’s health, the health of families, and the health of the whole world. Is there a cure? No. Cure is a loaded word. Who can compete with a million dollars a day spent by the pharmaceutical industry lobbying in Washington DC, not to mention their political contributions? While medical bureaucrats continue to place themselves and the financial health of their institutions above the health of the American citizens they are supposed to protect the health of, we will never receive full value for money from the NIH despite the good they do in many areas. As with Covid-19, is there a cure for cancer they are also ignoring or covering up? No. But that does not mean they are being 100% honest or fully transparent about that either. Why should anyone believe they are being more straightforward with cancer than they have been with viral disease?

            No one can bring back the good old days of 1950s America with truth, justice, and the American way. However, unless someone shines the intense light of intellectual and bureaucratic transparency on the greatest moral lapse in the history of American medicine, there is no hope of ever correcting a system that today seems broken beyond repair. This corruption of bureaucratic responsibility needs to be thoroughly investigated so it does not happen again. Serial pandemic failure is hugely costly. It must end. The sooner the better – before the next, even more deadly pandemic strikes.      

Scientifically yours,

Howard Armistead

Director

Selenium Education and Research Center

Formerly of Johannesburg, South Africa