How to Improve the Common Health of Virginia
The Commonhealth of Virginia Times
Turning Health Into Wealth For All Virginians Since
2026
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How
to Improve the Common Health of Virginia
If health is wealth, the
Commonwealth of Virginia should strive to improve its common health. The
quickest most affordable way to accomplish that would be to establish the
Virginia Institute for Clinical Health Research – VICHR - at Virginia
Commonwealth University. VICHR will clinically test additional uses for
existing medications.
Virginia
researchers can discover safe, effective and affordable complementary therapies
to come closer to curing numerous diseases and finding ways to reduce the symptoms
of some of those by 20% to 40%, or more. States should seek to maximize science-based
health solutions for their citizens, to improve economic vitality, and lower
overall medical costs for individuals, insurance companies, and the state budget
by developing innovative ways to reduce healthcare costs. Virginia should implement
a practical clinical research program to provide citizens the full benefits of
modern medical science. Unfortunately, often women, minorities, those who
cannot afford health insurance, and the world’s poor lack priority in medical research.
However, given the prevailing bureaucratic confusion in Washington, Virginia
now has the rare opportunity and rational impetus to erase that historic legacy
of research neglect and the strain it puts on the state budget by founding the
Virginia Institute of Clinical Health Research at VCU Medical School. By
improving health solutions Richmond truly can become a Shining City of Medical Progress
- a beacon for the entire world. The following are three examples of how VICHR
could make rapid, dramatic progress improving health outcomes not only for
Virginians, but for all Americans.
Influenza
has been a major killer throughout history. The 1918-20 Spanish Flu killed between
fifty and one hundred million worldwide, including 675,000 Americans out of a
population of one hundred million. In the U.S. that flu pandemic killed 2% of
those it infected, ten times the rate of seasonal flu, and twice the case
mortality rate of Covid-19. Currently, H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza
circles the globe, devastating wild birds, fowl, and the few mammal populations
it has crossed into, including sealions in Argentina and some dairy herds in
the Western U.S. While virologists warn H5N1 is only one genetic mutation away
from becoming transmissible person-to-person, they consider that specific
mutation to be quite difficult. Although that could happen any time, it may be
years before it occurs. It might never happen, or perhaps it will next flu
season. Regardless, epidemiologists expect another killer flu or deadly corona
virus pandemic will emerge in the coming years. If the H5N1 strain of influenza
does become transmissible, it might be so catastrophic that it would make
SARS-2/Covid-19 look like a fire-drill. Virginians need VICHR to protect us
from that black swan event, or from another SARS-1 that was ten times as deadly
as SARS-2.
Although
the Center for Disease Control – CDC - assures the public they have a sufficient
stock of antiviral drugs to protect the nation, virologist explain that the flu
virus mutates so rapidly that within any one individual the virus will develop
resistance to all existing antivirals within five days. Then resistant virus
can be passed on during a flu pandemic. That means that within four months,
current anti-flu drugs will become useless for everyone. Virologists have
repeatedly signaled an urgent need to develop new classes of flu medications
that will not be subject to viral resistance, but the flu antiviral development
pipeline is dry. Ironically, scientists ignore a large, wide-ranging class of
existing, affordable, broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that work by inhibiting the
human protein NF-kappaB – NF-kB - the primary stimulant of both viral
replication and inflammation. That large class of pharmaceuticals consists of
non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs - NSAIDs. It should be clinically imperative
to determine which NSAID drugs are most appropriate and efficacious against
each infectious and contagious viral disease. VICHR could determine that and
save thousands of lives - especially when the next deadly pandemic strikes.
Fortunately for anyone
who might catch the flu, in 2013 virologist Nathalie Lejal reported in an
article in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (57;5:2231-2240) that
the chemical molecule naproxen – Aleve – fits tightly into the influenza viral
groove and completely blocks viral replication. Yet after proving in the
laboratory that it is the most effective anti-influenza drug, in the dozen
years since, no scientist has reported testing naproxen against flu in humans. That
is despite influenza’s evolutionary history that has highly conserved the viral
groove, meaning naproxen will be effective against all flu variants, including
H5N1. Thus, no flu strain should develop resistance to it. Government must fill
this critical gap in clinical research. Establishing VICHR will facilitate
conducting clinical trials of naproxen against seasonal flu, confirming the practical
application of that laboratory science. That will help protect Virginians – and
the world - against all influenza in the future, potentially saving millions of
lives.
Sickle
cell anemia affects four thousand Virginians, 100,000 Americans, and eight
million people world-wide, mostly in Equatorial Africa. The nutritional
supplement selenium helps remedy standard cases of anemia and there are clear
indications in the scientific literature that this mineral also should help
reduce the painful, life-shortening disease we now refer to as sickle cell
disease - SCD. Among other things, selenium makes sickled red blood cells more
flexible, allowing them to pass more easily through the narrow capillaries
where they can jam up causing painful crises. As a major component of those
oxygen-carrying cells, adding selenium also helps regenerate additional red
blood cells more rapidly in a disease where they are destroyed far faster than
normal.
Significant
scientific evidence exists that vitamin D3 also provides an ameliorating effect on
SCD. Thus, it is highly probable that a therapeutic combination of selenium,
vitamin D3,
plus low dose aspirin to help prevent+ blood clotting, might reduce the severity
of painful SCD crises by 20% to 40%, and potentially prolong lives. That triple
combination certainly should demonstrate significant benefits. But physicians
will never know precisely how effective it is until it is tested. VICHR can
quickly measure the improvement that safe, affordable, therapeutic combination
provides and bring the world one step closer to providing partial symptomatic
relief from SCD. What are we waiting for? Eight million people would like to
know if and how they can reduce their pain and suffering.
Uterine
fibroids – UFs - is a hugely debilitating condition, rarely discussed in
public. Three million women in Virginia have, will have, or have had UFs - but
only 35% of those will suffer symptomatic disease. Those include multiple,
painful, expensive, even life-altering symptoms. UFs are the leading cause of
hysterectomies, and the second or third leading cause of infertility,
miscarriage, and Cesarean section birth. There are additional painful and
distressing effects that incur significant social, lifestyle, and economic
costs. For years researchers have tried to develop effective therapies for UFs but
far too often hysterectomies provide the final solution. Those can cost up to
$100,000. Remarkably, just as with SCD, a combination of nutritional therapies may
be able to shrink uterine fibroids in the range of 50% or more and reduce the
pain, suffering, and social, economic, and healthcare costs by a similar order
of magnitude. That will save thousands of women heartaches, and the Commonwealth
of Virginia tens of millions for healthcare annually. VICHR can quickly conduct
randomized, controlled clinical trials – RCTs - of those nutrients to determine
the exact degree of improvement they can provide the women of Virginia and the
world.
According
to the John Hopkins University Covid-19 dashboard, 23,666 Virginians died of
Covid-19 through the middle of 2022 when the pandemic finally tapered off. Yet Covid
is still with us, killing more people each year than seasonal influenza. Paxlovid
treats early SARS-2/Covid infection, but Paxlovid is hardly the end-all and be-all
solution to Covid-19. VICHR should test additional potential medications to
determine which safe and effective complementary therapies can reduce the
incidence of long Covid, and the mortality rate of Covid, and protect Virginians
from the onslaught of the next viral pandemic, regardless of from which
continent it originates.
With
VICHR, Virginia’s research scientists could make rapid progress against autoimmune
diseases, cancer epilepsy, infertility, leukemia, long Covid, lupus, improve
maternal and mental health, HIV, and more. As the second research institute in
the nation focused on repurposing medications, including testing pharmaceutically
produced vitamin and mineral supplements, VICHR will attract tens of millions annually
from foundations and high-worth individuals. It will become fully self-financing
within three years, saving Virginia tens of millions in healthcare costs while
costing the taxpayer nothing. All that is needed is the political will to
overcome the bureaucratic inertia. Thus, as a commonwealth founded on the
principles of Jeffersonian Enlightened Progress, Virginia should establish this
novel research institute to rapidly advance us closer to cures for many
diseases. That will improve health solutions not only for Virginians but will also
provide partial solutions for many common health problems affecting humanity.
CloserToaCure.com February, 2026 Howard
Steel Armistead, IAS, 01/31/26
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