Jonathan Collin
Jeff Childers’ Coffee & Covid
A while back a patient emailed me a few of Jeff Childers’ Coffee & Covid e-newsletters. It’s a “free” daily newsletter available each morning when you are having breakfast, hence, the coffee title. Childers is an attorney in Florida, but he has settled into a mid-life career of putting out a publication that lampoons the public health efforts that have been made to control Covid-19. (The subscription is free but an upgraded subscription for $50/month is presumably how he makes his money.) Childers continues to do legal work; he doesn’t claim otherwise, and he often examines court cases nationally, state-wide, and locally that bear on Covid-19 policies and mandates.
Of course, Jeff gets involved in reporting the politics of Covid-19 public health measures, especially efforts by states like Florida who have outlawed mandates and disciplinary action against physicians who spread “disinformation” about vaccinations. Yes, Childers feels he is engaged in a crusade to stop the “heinous, reprehensible” behavior of the CDC, FDA, NIH, and other agencies who foisted mandatory lockdowns, vaccinations, masking, and online education on a hapless public.
There are many folks who write about the terrible consequences of Covid-19 public health measures. Childers distinguishes himself by combining reporting study data with a sarcastic wit that is an amusing read. (Unless, of course, a reader is a public health worker who does not think bad things happen with mandates.) Recently Childers has taken to reporting on the sudden death of celebrities and non-celebrities who die suddenly with no apparent underlying illness. The assumption is that the sudden death is due to a cardiac arrest secondary to an arrhythmia brought on by a blood clot, which is, according to Childers, the result of an mRNA Covid-19 vaccination adverse effect.
Of course, it is all an assumption because Childers has no access to a pathology report; he just presumes that the sudden death of a healthy individual has no reasonable explanation other than a major cardiovascular event that developed as a consequence of the vaccine. It does not matter to Childers that the incidence of myocarditis in young people after the Covid-19 vaccine is a rare event; from his perspective, sudden death is vaccine related until proven otherwise. My question is how do we explain sudden death that occurred prior to 2019?
A recent issue of Coffee & Covid discussed Jeff and his wife’s weekend getaway for some R&R at a bed-and-breakfast inn. Jeff was hoping to escape from his newsletter tidings–who wants to talk about public health monstrosities at the beach? After carrying luggage to their room and walking to the garden out back, he was affronted with a large poster on the French doors calling for visitors to “Wear Masks Unless Vaccinated.” Of course, this policy was not being enforced, but Jeff chuckled that one would need a razor blade and a lot of patience to remove the sign. Florida was one of the first states to outlaw vaccine passports; the B&B management could not enforce the policy even if they wished to do so.
Returning to their rooms Jeff’s wife discovered a laminated letter from the owners lamenting their absence from the property. The husband and wife enjoyed serving guests a lovely breakfast but were unable to do this because the husband had suffered an unexpected stroke; his wife was caretaking him because he no longer could manage his day-to-day self-care. Childers was chagrined that even on a getaway he could not get away from the horrors of the vaccine.
In fact, his general opinion about the malign nature of the Covid-19 public health response was: “It was naive of us to think we could somehow avoid the heartbreaking detritus of the most diabolical and malevolent medical experiment ever recorded in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crimes.”
Whether you ardently support public health interventions or distrust them entirely, Coffee & Covid is a sardonic and biting, short read about the downsides and harms of public health and government policies. I have queried Jeff criticizing the dubious aspects of his editorializing about the cause of sudden deaths although he has never responded. Still much of what he writes about does not get much voice elsewhere and is belittled in mainstream media. It behooves us to consider both sides. Childers reports how public health has failed us and we do need to consider his concerns in planning our approach for the next pandemic.
Is There Evidence That the mRNA Covid-19 Vaccines Cause More Adverse Events Than Other Vaccines?
The March 29th issue of Coffee & Covid reported on a news article from the Victoria, Australia’s Umbrella News entitled “How the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ Became the World’s Control Group for the Largest Vaccination Trial Ever.”1 In this case the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ is not referring to North Korea but to the region around Perth, Australia, with a population of more than 2 million. Much of Australia beyond Perth is the very sparsely populated desert Outback; travel from Sydney and Melbourne is largely limited to plane or train. Thus, Perth is isolated not just from much of Australia but the world as a whole.
In 2020 and 2021, there had not been much Covid-19 in Perth. Nevertheless, the government mandated Covid-19 vaccination for everyone. Unlike the US, Australians generally diligently obey public health mandates, so most folks received two vaccinations. After February 2021 when vaccines in Perth were rolled out, the reporting of adverse effects from vaccination dramatically increased (see Figure 2 above).
Not unexpectedly, hospitals in Perth became overwhelmed with patients presenting with symptoms and conditions presumably secondary to adverse events following vaccination. Note that these patients did not have Covid-19 infection! Reporting about adverse effects from all vaccinations revealed a 24x greater rate of events following Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccine compared to all other vaccines combined. (see Table 14).
Not only was this not reported in major media in Australia, it was ignored in the US as well, nor was it findable searching on Google. Doesn’t the finding that mRNA vaccines cause severe side effects leading to hospitalization deserve major reevaluation by the FDA of the safety of these vaccines? It is remarkable as well that I would not have had access to this information except by a source like Coffee & Covid.
Mask Wearing as a Medical Totem
The mask situation is kind of a medical totem. Totems by their nature are based on beliefs not science. There are pros and cons to such belief systems, which may or may not prevent illness. Of course, to base public health policy on totems is not based on science.
If the pandemic we just endured was anything akin to smallpox, we would certainly have needed something more effective than a mask to block the inhalation of virus. Of course, in Level 4 biohazard labs people wear biohazard suits covering one from head to toe. I am not sure if a hazmat suit has ever been “proven” to be effective but my assumption is that it works given its use when one faces radiation, chemical, and biologic perils.
So, given the ineffectiveness of mask wearing to inhibit inhalation of virus what should public health policy be? Given the poor track record of masks, do we need to employ biohazard suits, gas masks, or something entirely different? Certainly, if Ebola were to develop somewhere in the US, we would need to engage in drastic measures to control the virus.
For myself, I continue to engage with the totem of mask wearing in my medical offices, which matches the policy of local Washington State hospitals. Of note, during the first two years of the pandemic, Washington State had roughly half the incidence and death per capita from Covid-19 compared to many other states in the US. This is remarkable given that a local nursing home in Kirkland, Washington (where I work) was the initial epicenter of Covid-19 in the US.
Heavy Menstrual Bleeding by Jennifer Johnson, ND, LAc
It wasn’t too long ago that discussion about one’s period was off limits not just in the parlor but at the doctor’s office. Women were uncomfortable discussing menstrual difficulties not only with their husbands but especially their doctors. While modesty regarding menstruation has for the most part subsided, heavy bleeding has been largely considered a “functional” problem of no major concern. Unfortunately, most women with metrorrhagia are anemic and go untreated. Moreover, the underlying cause of the excess blood loss is not diagnosed, causing major discomfort and pain that could and should be addressed by the health practitioner.
In this week’s e-Letter Dr. Jennifer Johnson, a Portland, Oregon naturopathic physician and acupuncturist reviews the diagnosis and treatment of heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB). Johnson is a graduate of Bastyr University, the University of Washington, and has completed a residency in women’s health. As her article discusses HMB can be caused by differing pathologies, including endometriosis, adenomyomas, fibroids, PCOS, and hypothalamic dysfunction. Adverse effects from drugs, poorly balanced hormone therapies, and birth control treatments can also cause HMB.
Diagnosis and treatment of HMB should not be ignored. Johnson offers an insightful approach that will benefit all those women who are bleeding excessively each month.
Correction: The April 8, 2023, e-Letter article “A New Generation of Dental Appliance” by Bob Frost initially listed Dr. Da Cruz’s website incorrectly. The correct website address is https://wholisticdentistry.com.au/.
References
- Barnett R. How the ‘hermit kingdom’ became the world’s control group for the largest vaccination trial ever. March 28, 2023. https://umbrellanews.com.au/featured/2023/03/how-the-hermit-kingdom-became-the-worlds-control-group-for-the-largest-vaccination-trial-ever/
Published April 22, 2023