All tagged Medicine
Long Covid Action Project (LCAP) activists Corsi Rosenthal (CR) and Clean Air (CA), along with journalist and LCAP founder Joshua Pribanic, discuss the recent direct action CR and CA participated in to disrupt the National Institute of Health's (NIH) first meeting for the RECOVER Initiative, ostensibly created to "understand, treat, and prevent Long COVID" in the United States.
Jonathan Howard MD joins me to discuss his timely book, We Want Them Infected: How the Failed Quest for Herd Immunity Led Doctors to Embrace the Anti-Vaccine Movement and Blinded Americans to the Threat of COVID, published by Redhawk Publications.
As much as Jonathan Howard’s book is a scathing examination of how various very influential and contrarian doctors misled the US public about the coronavirus pandemic, it is also a historical document. By meticulously, carefully, and thoroughly quoting countless social media posts, statements, essays, op-eds, and interviews from certain highly accredited doctors, Dr. Howard compares their claims to actual reality as the virus began to rip through the population. Over and over again, these outspoken figures made bold and inaccurate claims that the pandemic was just about to end; herd immunity was just around the corner; the worst of the plague had already past; children were unaffected; and so on. Over and over again, these contrarian figures were proven wrong. And yet, despite overwhelming evidence, they still maintain their professional status and accreditation to this day, seemingly unhindered—professionally, at least—by the widespread consequences of their repeated false assumptions and claims.
Michael Laufer of the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective returns to the podcast to reiterate the aims of the group, and update us on the collective's recent and soon to be launched projects.
As a founding member of this project, Dr. Laufer's objective has been to communicate the philosophical and material objectives of the organization, which has been described as "an anarchist biohacking group." Since its founding in 2015, the collective has worked to provide the information needed to produce DIY pharmaceutical drugs safely and equitably, particularly for a population, like those that live within the borders of the United States, that do not have easy and affordable access to them. This is especially relevant when we discuss, in this interview, the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe and Casey, leaving a sizable portion of the US population without access to pregnancy terminating procedures and abortifacient drugs. Dr. Laufer and the collective's response to this has been to provide, in an open and accessible manner, information on how to potentially attain and prepare the materials needed to have a safe DIY abortion, regardless of what a wholly illegitimate political and legal system may prohibit or discourage. But, this is only one facet of the broader conversation Dr. Laufer and I have in this episode. The absolute inaccessibility of the healthcare system for most US Americans is a violation of one of the most fundamental indicators of a healthy, equal, and stable society, which is access to care. Four Thieves Vinegar Collective is a response to that, giving us an inspiring alternative to the for-profit healthcare system that is impoverishing us more and more every day.
