A hot topic today is similarities between long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). There is sympathy and support between these groups of patients on social media, and patients and clinicians who treat them are determined to gather, develop and publicize the research so that they are believed that their symptoms are real, and we develop and deliver effective treatments.
According to a new PNAS article by Bindu Paul et al., ME/CFS patients and post-COVID-19 patients have a couple of similar abnormal biological markers including redox imbalance (antioxidants and pro-oxidants imbalance), systemic inflammation and neuroinflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and a general hypometabolic state. ME/CFS is a debilitating condition, often triggered by viral and bacterial infections, leading to years-long debilitating symptoms including profound fatigue, post-exertional malaise, unrefreshing sleep, cognitive deficits, brain fog and orthostatic intolerance.
In my opinion, Covid-19 infections may tip the immune surveillance system into haywire and unmask other hidden problems with a similar chain reaction of cytokine storms. In addition, I have found that undetected parasites, dental problems, environmental toxins and/or emotional stress are lesser-known stressors for triggering ME/CFS, and also post-Covid-19 complications, when I evaluate a patient’s acupuncture meridian system.
Is it possible for a machine to predict which patients from acute COVID-19 will suffer from post-COVID-19 syndromes, and develop “long COVID?” Follow the money, and we can predict the next pandemic: at least, that is a hypothesis from David Weinberger, a senior researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and co-director of the Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory at Harvard Law School; he thinks it is possible to predict the future of the world economy, finance, war, politics and pandemic outbreaks based on Big Data.
Ten years ago, Weinberger wrote a Scientific American article, “The Machine That Would Predict the Future.” He asked the question, “Is it possible as some of the most scientific minded scholars think that if you gather all the world’s data into a black box, could it become a crystal ball that would let you see the future and even test what would happen if you choose A over B?”
“Imagine a novel in which a deadly flu virus emerges. Where will it spread? Physicists and epidemiologists have begun to tap enormous data streams to make predictions about how a pandemic might play out and what can be done to stop it. Scientists took data from the ‘Where’s George project’ which tracks the location of millions of dollar bills as they move across the U.S., to model how 2009’s H1N1 flu virus would likely spread.” This predicted where it spread, but undercounted those infected.
The conclusion of the essay states, “The answer may come down to a disagreement about the nature of knowledge itself. We have for a couple of millennia in the West thought of knowledge (Science and Big Data) as a system of settled, consistent truths. Perhaps that exhibits the limitations of knowledge’s medium more than of knowledge itself… Unless, of course, the messy contention of ideas-nerds (scientists) arguing with nerds is a more fully true representation of the world.”
According to Weinberger, we can predict the pandemic by following the money. In response, I wrote, “Parasites Follow Money: Disease Follows Money:” still pertinent in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. War, the pandemic, and the war on pandemic are big lucrative businesses for some. For most, it is another challenge to decipher disputed controversial science, scientific dogma, and public policy.
After reading this Scientific American article, I could not help thinking that if disease follows money based on raw data like the movement of dollar bills, and if hidden parasite infections often precede the disease, therefore, parasites are disguised with a multitude of medical symptoms and they are the ones going after the money. Parasites are followed by disease, disease follows money, and therefore, parasites follow money.
It is time to question the arrogant idea of the West’s idea of knowledge (Science) as a system of settled, consistent truths. Big Data does not predict the individual expression of illness. We can vaccinate everybody and hope it will prevent the pandemic and we can treat individually to strengthen each person’s unique immune system and help prevent the pandemic’s lasting and worst consequences.
There is also a big problem with the reliability of testing for infectious parasites. Parasites are often carriers of bacteria and viruses. The idea of the “Where is George (Dollar Bill)?” project is very much like the, “Where’s Parasites” project! Perhaps inexpensive ivermectin should be fully tested in large-scale clinical trials against COVID-19, in addition to novel monoclonal antibodies in the United States.
Follow the dollars, and you will encounter viruses, diseases and parasites. Parasites have their own parasitic relationships with environmental toxins, bacteria, fungus, and virus. (It sounds more like our current American politics and finances as the money trail goes to politicians, lobbyists and Wall Street.) Once parasites have a stranglehold on you, they will drain your finances to treat whatever the name of the disease. Name your disease and name your dollars. Some fictional and conservative estimates: kidney problems for $250,000, heart problems for $500,000, colon or breast cancer for $1 million, medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) for $3 million, and the COVID-19 pandemic for billions.
Medical care and the burden of hospital expenses are one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcies in the United States. Sometimes, it’s better not knowing the name of the disease. Before you have no option but the hospital for expensive mega treatments, start with parasite cleansing, dental work, and detox, and you may notice MUS, Post-COVID or Long COVID, or ME/CFS symptoms disappear.
