From a British newspaper: Sheesh!

While we love Kansas, I am ashamed that it allows abortions – especially that it allows them up to 22 weeks. We are the “abortion capital of the Midwest,” a dubious title that many of us predicted would develop after Kansans voted against restricting abortion two years ago.    The leading abortion facility in Kansas is named “Trust Women.” It is currently closed to abortions and has been for a while. Here are two news stories regarding the behind-the-scenes drama:    The first, from May 23, is here .    The second, from  The Wichita Eagle and published yesterday, is here .     We can thank God that, evidently, no abortions have been performed in the interim and none will be provided in the immediate future.    However, women may want to consider what the May 23 story reports pertaining to the facility’s medical director:   According to sources, a new medical director was announced on Monday:   Dr. Ekwensi Griffit...

An interesting article here . 

This is a fascinating piece about how our self-styled "betters" can't bring themselves to admit they were wrong then it came to COVID treatments, and especially, the vaccines. It begins: If you haven’t yet encountered it, here’s the new orthodoxy on vaccine hesitancy from self-styled public intellectuals  Sam Harris  and  Scott Adam s (paraphrased): the science as it unfolded suggested that the vaccine hesitant had  no valid rational basis for that hesitancy ; while those who promoted mandates were wrong  only accidentally,  given that they were basing their position on the science  as it had been reported to them by those most credentialed to do so. I used to follow Scott Adams on Twitter but discontinued him more than a year ago when he seemed to just say the same thing over and over. But, I ran across him again just after Christmas and was shocked by how upset he was by people who were correct  about COVID and the vaccines. I highly encourage ...

A forecast of how rainbows will change in the next 78 years. 🙄 Taxpayers in both the United States and Great Britain evidently paid for this peer-reviewed paper.  First, who cares?! Second, weather forecasts 78 years in the future? Absurd.  That is hardly the only recent global warming silliness. See below from CNN. The nonsense doesn't stop! Of course, this is the same publication that told us in March, 2000, that "children aren't going to know what snow is." Today, if you attempt to look up that infamous article, you get, "We can't find that page*." No matter how many times the zealots are wrong , it never diminishes their confidence and self-righteousness.  NOTE: This one came out today, after the above was posted. Global warming: Is there anything it can't do?! * FYI: While I occasionally will delete a routine forecast to reduce clutter, I do never delete other content, including forecasts that are incorrect 

In a blockbuster report that, at least indirectly, bears on the safety of the COVID vaccines, the respected British Medical Journal has a scathing investigative report on how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't do its job when overseeing the development of new drugs. You can read the report here .  Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't be better off without the SEC (which rarely does its job) and the other government agencies that we think  are protecting us (but aren't). If the "alphabet agencies" didn't exist, perhaps better, private sector, alternatives would develop.

I've never liked the term "gaslighting" but that is exactly what is occurring with regard to the history of the absurd reaction to the COVID outbreak in the spring of 2020.  The Atlantic   wants us to believe the following fiction: We didn't know?!  Utter, utter nonsense. From this blog at the very same time, April 2020 .  I made the point that we were all safer outdoors many, many times in the spring and summer of 2020. This gaslighting, just before the election, is intended to get people to forgive and forget the vast, authoritarian overreaction from the left that has persisted the last three years. Just today, I went to a physician's office that required all of the patients wear masks even though, as usual, not all of the employees were doing so.  Note the date of this item from the New England Journal of Medicine  November 19, 2020: There is insufficient evidence to support the claim that masks reduce the infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2 and the severity o...

The Kansas School of Osteopathic Medicine opens in Wichita today with its initial class of 91 students. We are very glad to have them! Wichita also hosts a branch of the University of Kansas School of Medicine, so we will have two schools educating physicians in our community. 

An absolutely outstanding essay that I highly recommend: click here .  And, if you can get through the paywall, an outstanding editorial from the Wall Street Journal  on the same topic. Did you know there were two new -- likely better -- vaccines for COVID the government is sitting on? 

This cogent, well-done , piece was written before then FDA more or less admitted that myocarditis is an issue with the vaccines when administered to children.  I wish to clarify again: I am triple vaccinated and am a fan of adults getting the vaccine after checking with one's physician. Personally, I would not give the vaccine to a child under 20 because they are low risk when it comes to COVID and the, admittedly small, risk of heart issues. However,  your pediatrician may have a different opinion and parents should check with their children's physician. 

On two occasions ( here and here ) in 2020, I used the term "miasma" when discussing medical officials' inexplicable advice to the public pertaining to COVID. In the earlier of the two pieces, I wrote: My point was that the advice they were giving was appropriate if COVID spread through contaminated air. But Dr. Fauci, CDC and WMO were confusingly telling us that it spread through "droplets" (there are many other articles in addition to the one at the link that state the droplet hypothesis). The two -- droplets vs contaminated air -- are contradictory in the way transmission occurs and how to protect ourselves.  In a fascinating investigative report in Wired ,  it turns out the miasma theory  is correct when it comes preventing the spread of COVID in the sense that airborne coronavirus virons (small enough to be aerosols* -- a term also used in meteorology) suspended in the air create an invisible cloud of "bad air." Spend enough time in it and you a...

Before I go further, I am a supporter of vaccines, including the COVID vaccines. I have been vaccinated three times against the disease. (More advice at the end of this piece.) That said, day by day, something increasingly seems wrong with the COVID vaccines. Notice the emphasis on the word, "seems." I am not a physician and I don't know how seriously to take the information below. But, I do have a number of questions.  Monday, Sept 27 Tuesday, Sept 28 I personally know two nurses who refuse the get vaccinated. Why are health care workers -- the very people who should want the vaccine most -- refusing the jab? Late Monday morning [Sept 20], I had to go to a local emergency room due to a reaction to a new medicine. The place was packed. I had an exceptionally long wait. While chatting with the ER physician who treated me, he told me that he was "in the process of admitting six COVID patients who are really sick. And, they are all fully vaccinated." What?? Dr. Fau...

This is a fantastic idea. Before you say, "But, they are closed on Sundays," please keep in mind that, at least in our area, they are only offering injections five  days a week. This would be an improvement. Of course, this is tongue-in-cheek.  Seriously, my real choice would be Walgreen's. They seem to understand medicine distribution and I get my flu shots there. They also have contracts with many nursing homes. Meanwhile doses are expiring because our utterly incompetent government cannot duplicate past successful vaccination campaigns . 

The subject of this posting is the insect not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The United States is in danger of losing the ability to produce anti-venom for wasp and other insect stings . As usual, the government seems to be part of the problem. Even though the United States and Europe now have effective treatments, if we brought over Europe's anti-venom across the Atlantic this fascinating article states: ...The FDA would likely require “multimillion-dollar clinical trials involving sting challenges,” says Golden, referring to the act of intentionally stinging people by holding a yellow jacket, for example, on the arm of a volunteer until it stings them, which comes with the risk of anaphylaxis. “So, we’re stuck,” he says. I recommend reading the entire article if you or someone who know has allergic reactions to insect bites.

What do we do to stop COVID suffering and economic disruption moving forward? The scientific evidence is absolutely clear: closing schools is a terrible idea. It is past time we use scientific data -- not politicians CYA'ing -- to make vital decisions. Schoolchildren as a group have suffered the most in this pandemic due to have their crucial educations interrupted. This is particularly insane in places like NYC where schools are closed while restaurants, gyms, et cetera, are still open. The statistics show schoolchildrens' risk is a tiny fraction of older peoples.'  Closing schools is just one of the many bad decisions. The doubling-down on masks is another (scroll down to postings below). So, what do we do to get us on the right track? I suggest going on  offense. While I am not a physician, there are some common sense things we can do to get us out of this mess sooner rather than later. These suggestions are a combination of my ideas and those of epidemiologist Dr. Micha...

Skyrocketing suicides are just part of the problem with the COVID precautions. Some are arguing masks are taking away our humanity.  While opinion, this important piece is here . 

 I wasn't expecting the hugely favorable reaction on Twitter to the posting (below) about the latest study that -- yet again -- demonstrates masks, social distancing, etc., don't work.  There is another peer-reviewed study out today that says masks do not work : In this community-based, randomized controlled trial conducted in a setting where mask wearing was uncommon and was not among other recommended public health measures related to COVID-19, a recommendation to wear a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, incident SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with no mask recommendation.  One of my readers sent me a link to all of the studies that show the same thing. It was prepared by the Swiss Policy Institute. You can review them here .  Also, there may be less to the number of cases of COVID we are experiencing in the United States than meets the eye. Details here .  I want to be clear: mas...