Category Archives: Alternative Medicine

NEW JERSEY On Tuesday, New Jersey's Cannabis Regulatory Commission announced it has approved licenses to 30 new medical marijuana dispensaries that will open throughout the state.

The medical pot shops will be spread equally through the state: 10 in North Jersey, 10 in Central Jersey and 10 in South Jersey, said the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, or CRC.

However, the CRC declined to make public the exact towns where the applicants applied to open up shop, saying it was not yet considered public information. Stay tuned for towns.

In 2019, dozens of people submitted applications to open medical marijuana shops in New Jersey. The Cannabis Regulatory Commission is the government agency that reviews all the applications and decides which applications will be approved.

The CRC said these new shops opening will avoid people having to make long drives to buy medicinal weed.

"We constantly hear from patients that prices are too high and that there are too few dispensaries with too few product options," said CRC Chairwoman Dianna Houenou. "More medicinal dispensaries will mean prices will come down and patients will have more choices for where they go."

Here are the names of the 30 new licensees and where they will be located:

10 medical pot shops opening in North Jersey:

10 medical pot shops opening in Central Jersey:

10 medical pot shops opening in South Jersey:

Currently, there are 23 medical pot shops in New Jersey, so these new licencees will bring the total up to more than 50 medical pot shops throughout the state, once they all open.

The chair of the commission said supply cannot keep up with New Jersey's demand for medicinal pot: They originally were only going to approve 15 new medical pot shops, but decided to increase it to 30.

"The intent was to award 15 dispensaries, but based on our assessment of patients' access to medicine in the New Jersey market considering price and location we believe that would be inadequate," said CRC's executive director Jeff Brown. "The number of registered patients go up every month."

There are currently 121,357 patients enrolled in New Jersey's medical marijuana program. The state expects that number to increase in 2022 despite the fact that recreational marijuana is now legal in New Jersey as well.

"The situation has not changed with the legalization of recreational cannabis; the current alternative treatment centers have not kept pace with patient need," Houenou said previously.

Since Gov. Phil Murphy legalized recreational marijuana at the start of 2021, many New Jersey towns scrambled to pass laws restricting where or even if pot shops can open.

But these medical pot shops "are not subject to any of the restrictions municipalities have adopted for recreational facilities in recent months," said the CRC.

And newly licensed medical pot shops may expand into the recreational business, said the Commission. Legal pot shops can start opening in New Jersey in 2022.

The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission is the regulating agency for New Jersey's booming legal weed industry. In October, the commission approved eight new medical marijuana grow facilities: Five in Central Jersey, three in North Jersey and two in South Jersey. These are strictly facilities where medical marijuana can be grown.

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30 New Medical Pot Shops Are Coming To NJ: Heres Where - Patch.com

The German government has announced a lockdown for the unvaccinated and is considering making Covid vaccines mandatory, after weeks of record infections in the country and much of German-speaking Europe.

In Austria, thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest against a string of measures: from February, the government will be introducing compulsory vaccines for all, with exemption for those unable to receive a jab on medical grounds.

Vaccination rates in both Germany and Austria are lagging behind the rest of western Europe, with under 70% of the populations having had two jabs.

People from both countries explain what they make of the current situation, and what they think of vaccine mandates and restrictions for the unvaccinated.

Max, 26, lives in the German state of Baden Wrttemberg and has chosen to remain unvaccinated against Covid.

I have a medical condition, an autoimmune disorder, which raises my risk of side effects from the current set of vaccines, and led my GP to recommend that I not take them. We are both closely following the development of alternative vaccines, which may not have this elevated risk.

Max, who says his doctors concerns dont suffice to make him exempt on medical grounds, is exasperated by the restrictions for those in the population who have not been immunised against the virus.

Public health bureaucrats have decided that they know more about my medical circumstances than my own doctor. The personal risk analysis that was once the hallmark of good clinical care is now strongly discouraged by the Robert Koch Institute [Germanys federal health agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention], and doctors are told to make decisions based not on their patients needs but on the assessments of bureaucrats.

Because I decided to listen to the honest medical advice of my doctor, I have been subjected to an increasingly insane series of measures, openly designed to make my life functionally unliveable, until I take a medical intervention that I know is not right for me.

These measures have done absolutely nothing to convince me they have simply made my life harder and lonelier. I am now barred from public life; I cant go to the shops, and I am subject to a ridiculous personal curfew that makes it illegal for me to leave the house after 9pm.

Donovan, 27, a geoscientist from Potsdam, Germany who got vaccinated as soon as it was possible and has had his booster jab, is comfortable with restrictions for the unvaccinated, but is feeling very ambivalent about a possible vaccine mandate for the general population.

I dont like mandates. Im uncomfortable with any government, anywhere, telling any person what they are obliged to do with their body, and I sincerely hope that, as Austrian ministers have said, the mandate will be a tool for persuasion, rather than an actual mechanism to pressure people into getting vaccinated.

People in this region in particular were required to do things they didnt want to do for a long time, historically speaking, and I hope that the new coalition government in Germany will uphold every persons inviolable autonomy over their own body.

Distrust in government is especially rife in east Germany, he says, where the population was spied on and controlled for decades by the former communist regime.

This distrust is a bigger issue in my view than anything else. But I have hope that some people will change their minds.

What exactly a vaccine mandate would mean in practice, however, remains as unclear in Germany as in Austria.

I support measures that significantly reduce the personal freedoms of the unvaccinated, given the risk they pose to society.

I additionally support vaccine mandates in the care sector, and I would support further measures, like those taken by companies in the USA, which would require unvaccinated individuals to pay higher health insurance or social care contributions. Those of us who are vaccinated should not continue to subsidise the medical costs of the unvaccinated.

In the state of Brandenburg, where he lives, only 61% of people had had two doses of the vaccine when he looked it up about a week ago.

Thats simply not enough. I dont want anyone to lose their job because they didnt want to get vaccinated, but I understand that in these extraordinarily difficult times, extraordinarily difficult measures may have to be taken.

Heike*, 68, a pensioner from Munich, echoes Donovans views, and feels uneasy about compulsory vaccinations.

Im fully vaccinated, and just had a booster, but hesitate about vaccines becoming mandatory. We should preserve freedom of choice, but I dont have a problem with the unvaccinated becoming severely restricted regarding restaurants, cafes, travel, visitors, employment, social events and shopping for anything else but essentials.

The unvaccinated, Heike believes, have soaked up unscientific advice that is clouding their judgment, but a constructive dialogue between pro- and anti-vaccine camps that might convince sceptics to be inoculated no longer seems possible.

People here are very black and white about things. My husband would support it if people would be restrained and forcefully vaccinated. The conversation has become very aggressive.

Many of those refusing to get jabbed favour alternative medicine, Heike thinks.

All my friends who arent vaccinated always visit homeopathic doctors. There are horrible consequences as a result of this refusal to get the vaccine cancer operations are cancelled, for instance.

My friend thought it was OK for people to forge vaccine certificates. These people should be jailed in my view.

Thomas Steiner, 49, a video producer from Vienna, believes a widespread lack of appreciation for science in Austria is one of the root causes of the countrys low vaccine uptake.

I have no idea where this comes from, but Austria, like Germany, is an esoteric hotspot. Alternative medicine and homeopathy are big business here and sold in pharmacies; its deeply ingrained. A lot of people say thats one of the culprits for the situation we have now.

But, he adds, the matter is complex. The reasons are of course multifaceted, and the other major factor is political: our governing party, VP, announced the end of the Covid crisis on massive billboards this summer, and said from now on it would be a private matter for individuals to deal with. We have beaten the pandemic, fought the crisis. Finally, together again, one of these billboards read. That was the message.

In addition, not enough was done to promote vaccines. The rightwing FP party is openly against vaccination. In this political climate, everything is an uphill battle.

Overall, Steiner thinks there is no way around a general vaccine mandate. We need one to counter our low vaccination rate, like we had in the 70s against smallpox. It wont be a challenge to get this mandate through the courts.

Its not what everyone wanted, but here we are.

Some names have been changed

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I dont like mandates: Germans and Austrians on new Covid measures - The Guardian

Featured Image for Experimental Biology and Medicine

Featured Image for Experimental Biology and Medicine

WASHINGTON, Dec. 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A recently published article in Experimental Biology and Medicine (Volume 246, Issue 23, December, 2021) highlights the importance of early-in-life screening for brain damage in children with sickle cell. The study, led by Dr. Jane Hankins in the Department of Hematology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH) in Memphis, along with colleagues at SJCRH, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Washington University (USA), reports that children with sickle cell anemia which present with alterations in MRI/MRA imaging at a young age are more likely to have new or worsened brain lesions as young adults.

Brain lesions among children living with sickle cell anemia is a prevalent problem with serious consequences later in life. In addition to the risk of overt stroke, which can be devastating for a child with sickle cell anemia, micro (silent) infarcts and vessel stenoses (vessel narrowing) can occur and accumulate over time. Lesions to the brain impair the brain's function, namely, the person's cognitive (or thinking) abilities, limiting their academic success and future earning potentials. Treatments to prevent or reduce the impact of brain damage in individuals with sickle cell anemia have the potential to mitigate the effects of brain damage, but have not been adequately studied, nor have they been described in real-world settings, outside of the very controlled (and artificial) environment of clinical trials.

Dr. Hankins and colleagues performed one of the longest observational studies of children with sickle cell anemia. Children were followed for up to 25 years, and their brains monitored for brain and vessel damage in young adulthood. From childhood to young adulthood, approximately one-fifth of these children had new or worsened brain lesions. Among those patients whose brain lesions were present since childhood (approximately 30%), brain damage progressed with more micro infarcts and vessel narrowing more frequently (up to 11 times more likely) compared with those whose lesions appeared after childhood. However, the development of brain lesions seemed to attenuate after adolescent years, a finding that suggests a possible protective role of the treatments these children had received since early in life, including hydroxyurea and monthly blood transfusions. Dr. Hankins said, "Brain damage among individuals with sickle cell anemia causes grave consequences, therefore more efforts are needed to fully understand, mitigate and prevent them from occurring in first place. Although the treatments these children received (hydroxyurea and monthly blood transfusions) might have attenuated the further development of brain damage, they did not fully prevent it, therefore alternative treatments must be investigated and considered, including curative ones, such as hematopoietic cell transplant and gene therapies, to fully protect these children's brains."

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Dr. Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine, said, "Hankins and colleagues have performed a long longitudinal follow-up made possible through a strong collaboration between those taking care of children and young adults with sickle cell disease in Memphis, Tennessee. Their important findings argue for early and frequent imaging of potential brain lesions, along with therapies to slow or eliminate progression in those most effected with central nervous system damage."

Experimental Biology and Medicine is a global journal dedicated to the publication of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the biomedical sciences. The journal was first established in 1903. Experimental Biology and Medicine is the journal of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine. To learn about the benefits of society membership, visit http://www.sebm.org. If you are interested in publishing in the journal, please visit http://ebm.sagepub.com.

For more information, please contact ebm@sebm.org.

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Protecting the brain in sickle cell anemia: the value of beginning early in life - Yahoo Finance

Dr Rebecca Wong Shin Yee, Professor of Physiology and Head of Preclinical Sciences at SEGi Universitys Faculty of Medicine, has been named among the Worlds Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University in the list published in October 2021.

This is the second consecutive year that Prof Dr Wong made it into the prestigious list, which represents the top 2% of the worlds most-cited scientists in various disciplines. (Source: https://doi.org/10.17632/btchxktzyw.3)

The Worlds Top 2% Scientists list was created by researchers from Stanford University. It selected over 100,000 top scientists worldwide based on standardised citation indicators such as information on citations, H-index, co-authorship, and a composite indicator. The database consists of scientists across 22 major scientific fields and 176 sub-fields from 149 countries.

Scopus data were used for analyses of the citations and the composite indicators. Scopus is a huge multidisciplinary database with citations and abstracts from peer-reviewed journal literature, trade journals, books, patent records, and conference publications.

Prof Dr Wongs recognition places SEGi University on the global map of excellence in medical research and brings great pride to the university.

Professor Hew Moi Lan, Group Executive Director and Group Chief Executive Officer of SEG International Berhad congratulated Prof Dr Rebecca Wong on behalf of SEGi University.

SEGi is honoured to have one of our esteemed academics recognised as the Worlds Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University for two consecutive years. This will encourage our faculties to continue and strengthen their research efforts to emulate Prof Dr Wongs achievements, she stated.

Prof Dr Wong is a trained and registered medical practitioner. Her passion for leukaemia, stem cell and medical education research has yielded more than 40 publications in high-impact international journals. Her works have been cited more than 2700 times by researchers worldwide and she has also published five academic books in the field of physiology.

Prof Dr Wong feels greatly honoured to be listed as one of the Worlds Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University again. I view this as a motivational force to continue conducting quality research and publishing my works in good journals, she said.

Prof Dr Wongs contribution to academia is not limited to her own research and publications. She is frequently invited to be a peer reviewer by many high-impact international journals. Among the journals are PLoS ONE, Cell Biochemistry and Function, Journal of International Nanomedicine, Journal of Cell Science and Therapy, Journal of Stem Cell Research and Therapy, Cell Proliferation, Journal of Diabetes Research, Journal of Stem Cell Research and Therapy, Biomed Research International, Food and Function, Archives of Medical Research, Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, as well as Journal of International Medical Research.

Recently, Prof Dr Wong was also invited to be a judge and plenary speaker for research symposiums in the country.

Throughout her career, Prof Dr Wong has received numerous awards, such as the Malaysia Most Impactful Young Educator Award in 2019 and Ten Outstanding Young Malaysians Awards 2018 by Junior Chamber International.

Her other recognitions include the Outstanding Young Scientist/Student Award 2011 at the Asian Congress of Biotechnology 2011, Shanghai, China, as well as 1st prize for the Young Investigator Award at the Diabetes Asia 2010 Conference by National Diabetes Institute Malaysia. She was also a recipient of the prestigious Science and Technology Research Grant by Malaysia Toray Science Foundation in 2009.

This content is provided by SEGi University and Colleges.

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For the 2nd time listed as the World's Top 2% scientists by Stanford University - Malaysiakini

People protest a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers on Oct. 28 in New York City. Polling, vaccination and mortality data all suggest that Republicans lag far behind in vaccination and are suffering the worst consequences as a result. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images hide caption

People protest a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers on Oct. 28 in New York City. Polling, vaccination and mortality data all suggest that Republicans lag far behind in vaccination and are suffering the worst consequences as a result.

Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That's according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic.

NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.73 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: "It's back down to around 5.5 times higher."

The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality. The data also reveal a major contributing factor to the death rate difference: The higher the vote share for Trump, the lower the vaccination rate.

The analysis only looked at the geographic location of COVID-19 deaths. The exact political views of each person taken by the disease remains unknowable. But the strength of the association, combined with polling information about vaccination, strongly suggests that Republicans are being disproportionately affected.

Recent polling shows that partisanship is now this single strongest identifying predictor of whether someone is vaccinated. Polling also shows that mistrust in official sources of information and exposure to misinformation, about both COVID-19 and the vaccines, run high among Republicans.

"An unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat," says Liz Hamel, vice president of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy think tank that tracks attitudes toward vaccination. Political affiliation is now the strongest indicator of whether someone is vaccinated, she says: "If I wanted to guess if somebody was vaccinated or not and I could only know one thing about them, I would probably ask what their party affiliation is."

It was not always this way. Earlier in the pandemic, many different groups expressed hesitancy toward getting vaccinated. African Americans, younger Americans and rural Americans all had significant portions of their demographic that resisted vaccination. But over time, the vaccination rates in those demographics have risen, while the rate of Republican vaccination against COVID-19 has flatlined at just 59%, according to the latest numbers from Kaiser. By comparison, 91% of Democrats are vaccinated.

Being unvaccinated increases the risk of death from COVID-19 dramatically, according to the CDC. The vast majority of deaths since May, around 150,000, have occurred among the unvaccinated, says Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

While vaccine hesitancy exists in many different groups, Hotez suspects that the deaths are "overwhelmingly" concentrated in more politically conservative communities. "How does this make sense at any level?" he asks.

The consequences for individuals are real. Mark Valentine still remembers when his brother called him to tell him he had contracted coronavirus. Valentine is a trial consultant in North Carolina. His brother Phil, 61, was a well-known conservative talk show host in Nashville, Tenn., who often expressed skepticism about vaccination.

Conservative talk radio host Phil Valentine (right), pictured with his brother, Mark (second from left). Phil had been skeptical about COVID and the COVID vaccines, sometimes mocking them on his talk show. Earlier this year, he contracted the virus and died. Courtesy of Mark Valentine hide caption

Conservative talk radio host Phil Valentine (right), pictured with his brother, Mark (second from left). Phil had been skeptical about COVID and the COVID vaccines, sometimes mocking them on his talk show. Earlier this year, he contracted the virus and died.

Neither brother was vaccinated, and neither one was particularly worried about Phil's positive result. His brother said he was trying several alternative therapies commonly promoted in conservative circles. "He said, 'I've got the ivermectin, I started it this morning, and I don't think it's going to be a big deal,' " Mark Valentine recalls. "And frankly I didn't think about it anymore."

But a week later, Mark said he got a call from his brother's wife saying that the two were going to the hospital. "Before I knew it, he was in there and I couldn't get to him, couldn't talk to him," Valentine recalls. "His situation took a nosedive like you can't believe."

Phil Valentine died in August about five weeks after he announced he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Misinformation appears to be a major factor in the lagging vaccination rates. The Kaiser Family Foundation's polling shows Republicans are far more likely to believe false statements about COVID-19 and vaccines. A full 94% of Republicans think one or more false statements about COVID-19 and vaccines might be true, and 46% believe four or more statements might be true. By contrast, only 14% of Democrats believe four or more false statements about the disease.

Belief in multiple false statements highly correlates with vaccination status, Hamel says. "If you believe that the vaccines can damage your fertility, that they contain a microchip and that the government is inflating the number of COVID-19 deaths, you're going to think really differently about whether to get vaccinated."

Perhaps the most pernicious pieces of misinformation have to do with the perceived severity of COVID-19 itself. The most widely believed false statement was: "The government is exaggerating the number of COVID-19 deaths."

Hamel says that underestimating the severity of COVID-19 appears to be a major reason why Republicans in particular have fallen behind in vaccination: "We've seen lower levels of personal worry among Republicans who remain unvaccinated," she says. "That's a real contrast with what we saw in communities of color, where there was a high level of worry about getting sick."

Complacency around the risks of contracting COVID-19 certainly seemed to be a major reason why the Valentine brothers avoided vaccination. While not conspiracy theorists, they were staunch Trump supporters. The arrival of coronavirus just ahead of the presidential election of 2020 seemed like "the most fortuitous pandemic in the history of the world" for the Democratic Party, recalls Mark.

Despite the media coverage, Phil Valentine didn't believe COVID-19 was serious as long as you were healthy: "He said, 'The likelihood of me getting it is low. In the unlikely event that I do get it, the likelihood that I will survive it is 99-plus %,' " Mark Valentine recalls.

Vaccine researcher Peter Hotez is deeply troubled by the current state of affairs. A winter surge in COVID-19 cases is brewing, and the newly discovered omicron variant has the potential to make things far worse.

He thinks the elements of the Republican Party that are endorsing anti-vaccine ideas need to take a big step back. "I'm not trying to change Republican thinking or far-right thinking," he says. "I'm trying to say: 'The anti-science doesn't belong; it doesn't fit. ... Just stop it and save lives.' ''

Before his illness, Phil Valentine had sometimes promoted unproven alternative therapies and taken a mocking tone toward vaccination. As his situation deteriorated, Mark says the talk show host realized he needed to encourage his listeners to get vaccinated. Phil told his brother, "'My fear is that because I didn't get it, other folks may not get it," Mark Valentine recalls. The family put out a statement in support of vaccination, and Mark went on to his brother's talk show to encourage listeners to take the shot.

He also headed to his local Walmart to get vaccinated. "The guy comes out; he said, 'Do you have any questions or concerns?' " Mark Valentine recalls. "I said, 'Hell yeah, I've got both, but do it anyway.' "

Methodology

Vaccination rate data are the rate of vaccination among all people 18 years of age or older, as of Nov. 30. They are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 residents are calculated by dividing the deaths from COVID-19 in a county since May 1 by the county's population. County population data come from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 decennial census. May 1 was chosen as the start date of our analysis because that is roughly the time when vaccines became universally available to adults ages 18 and older. COVID-19 death data is collected by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University and is current as of Nov. 30. COVID-19 death data for Florida and Utah are from the May 2 and December 1 editions of the COVID-19 Community Profile Report, produced by the White House COVID-19 Team.

2020 election result data are from MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

Alaska does not report election results by county-equivalent area, so it is excluded from the analysis. Nebraska is excluded from the analysis because it does not report county-level COVID-19 statistics. Hawaii is excluded because it does not report county-level vaccine data. Some counties that have reported no COVID-19 deaths since May 1 may have stopped reporting. These counties generally have very small populations and have a negligible impact on the weighted averages. Erring on the side of caution, we include all data unless it is known that they are in error.

All averages are weighted by county population. The overall average represents the average of the 3,011 counties included in the analysis.

Thanks to Emily Gurley, Professor of the Practice and Emily Pond, Research Data Analyst, both of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for discussions about our methodology.

NPR's Huo Jingnan contributed to this story.

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Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame - NPR

The diagnosis of a split in society is commonplace today societies are shaken by discord and divisions are intensifying. The claims differ in details but on some basic assumptions, there is usually agreement.

First, there are increasingly testy disputes, largely along a traditional left-right axis but sometimes deviating from it. Culture wars break out over gender issues, racism and anti-racism, immigration and who belongs to the us even lifestyles. Pundits talk about societies breaking into hostile tribes.

There is also a degree of unanimity in the analyses about alienation from the conventional political system anger that they are not interested in us at all especially in underprivileged segments of the population, including the old working classes but also the marginalised lower middle class and the underclass.

Those who are victims of growing insecurity feel that they can no longer rely on solidarity: You cant count on anyone anymore. Many people say I just look out for myself now in a depressed, negative individualism. These social milieux are then particularly appealing to right-wing populists and extremists who proclaim: Yes, no one listens to you but I am your voice.

This is a particular challenge for progressive political parties: the social democrats, the Labour Party, the American Democrats, the vast majority of traditional labour and left-wing movements. On the one hand, left-wing parties have a great deal of sympathy with popular revolts against ruling elites and systems of chronic injustice indeed, for many decades of their existence, they were the bearers of them. Yet, on the other hand, in the eyes of many who turn away in disappointment, they themselves are part of that detested elite. Even if they the parties see themselves as part of the solution, many of their potential voters see them as part of the problem.

Those who are under economic pressure, who struggle with job insecurity and who generally see themselves as losers of economic transformations easily feel politically unheard.

This is by no means to say that the supporters of right-wing, anti-system parties are primarily part of a working-class that has become politically homeless but they do also come from this group. Those who are under economic pressure, who struggle with job insecurity, who are confronted with stagnating wages and who generally see themselves as losers of economic transformations easily feel politically unheard, no longer represented, disrespected and left behind as innocent victims of injustice. I have analysed all this in my bookThe False Friends of the Ordinary People, including how right-wing populists appeal successfully to the traditional values of the working classes.

The left-wing and progressive parties have, of course, already recognised the problem and are responding to it in a wide variety of ways: shifting to the left, managing a gradual course correction, or dissolving into hopeless debates about strategy. The fact that the German social democrats went into the recentBundestagelection campaign with the slogan Respect is due to this diagnosis, and at least it led to the SPD regaining first place and the chancellorship.

It is remarkable that, while different countries on different continents have strikingly different political cultures and traditions, these discourses and rhetorics are astonishingly similar. The structural transformation of debate in the public sphere through the internet, blogs, and social media of course contributes massively here and yet this is oftendramatically underestimated.

These days, however, the diagnosis of polarisation is being invoked almost daily in a specific context. That is the anti-virus regime, with the disputes over lockdowns, rejection of vaccination, denial of the pandemic or its danger and the rise of conspiracy theories. This, too, is global, but there are nonetheless notable national differences.

In the United States, opposition to measures to contain Covid-19 is a common slogan of the radical right under its front figure, the former president, Donald Trump. In other countries, this is less pronounced.

Scepticism and rejection of modern medicine and thus of vaccination also varies widely. Portugal has a vaccination rate of around 90 per cent and Denmark 87 per cent but, of the traditionally western European countries, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have the lowest rates. Theystagnatedfor a long time at just around 65 per cent.

These countries have far-right and right-wing populist parties mobilising against vaccination. The same groups which score points on the culture war issues claiming to be the voice of the common people, the regular guy are now saying: the elites, the government, want to poison you with a vaccine. They are establishing enforced vaccination, a corona dictatorship. They are bought by Big Pharma, street mobsters of sinister world rulers. And they are exploiting an invented or exaggerated disease to destroy freedom and bully the common people.

There is evidently a massiveloss of trustin the entire political system so that many no longer believe anyone perceived in any way to be part of an imaginary establishment.

Given its obvious madness, the astonishing thing is that a not insignificant part of their followers buy into all this craziness. Those who believe the whole radical nonsense are rather few. But a much larger group have doubts about medical science and are less willing to believe the experts than people who pontificate on the internet. Whats happening here?

There is evidently a massiveloss of trustin the entire political system, so that many no longer believe anyone perceived in any way to be part of an imaginary establishment. How alienated and frustrated must they be if they simply dont believe anything anymore and, on the contrary, are willing to take at face value what they read in some weird group on Telegram or WhatsApp?

Rebellion has traditionally connoted emancipation. But this is a revolt against reason.

Especially in the German-speaking countries, where enlightenment rationalism took less deep roots romanticism with its anti-rationalism rather more hostility to science is probably even more widespread than in other cultures. The Nazi movement and its totalitarianism, too with its penchant for the occult and the obscure as well as its contempt for reason may have left deeper traces in this respect than one might think.

Progressive and left-wing parties have always been in the traditional stream of the enlightenment, acting as educational movements. But they too have seen simplifications and conspiratorial ideas among their followers: in 1890 Ferdinand Kronawetter described anti-Semitism as the socialism of the stupid guys (der Socialismus der dummen Kerle).

Also, the environmental movement, considered by many to be alternative and somehow a product of the rebellious counter culture of the 1960s, has its questionable traditions. It upholds the natural and the feeling, life in balance with nature, and has a scepticism of the rationality of science and technology. Natural healing methods, homoeopathy, alternative medicine, and obscurantism of all sorts are quite popular here and are opposed to orthodox medicine, which primarily wants to cram chemicals into people.

Anyhow, if we want to understand current, extremely weird and yet still unclear events, then we should start to bring these elements together. The alienation from the system of politics caused massive annoyance even before the pandemic and is now making the fight against the pandemicdifficult. There is an exasperation with the system on the part of people who often rightly no longer feel represented or even noticed by it.

The popularity of right-wing populism and extremism is certainly a revolt with legitimate aspects but in perverse forms. The depth of this loss of trust is also evident in anti-rationalist revolts against management of the pandemic and even against medical science.

Those who fall into the clutches of such an ideology and an entire system of misinformation come to believe ever more absurd things. They remodel themselves, so to speak, and fall into a dynamic of self-radicalisation which can very soon become truly dangerous.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe andIPS-Journal

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The revolt against reason Democracy and society - IPS Journal

After working in hospital settings in Wyoming and Arizona throughout their careers, Elizabeth and Rob Miller recently moved to the Flathead Valley to open a primary care clinic with the goal of having deeper patient connections while also using alternative medicine.

Both nurse practitioners, Elizabeths passion lies in general health, weight loss and womens health while her husband Rob, who is also a nurse anesthetist, focuses on the wellness realm at their new primary care clinic, Alpine Health and Wellness in Kalispell.

While the clinic offers general primary care services like acute care, exams, pap smears and diabetes treatments, the Millers also offer unique therapies like intravenous (IV) nutritional infusions to improve energy, immune health and even hangovers.

Weve used nutrient therapy a lot, Elizabeth said. A lot of people use it to stay healthy and some people come in with illnesses, fatigue or brain fog.

With several IV therapies to choose from, Elizabeth says they are mostly variations of the classic Myers Cocktail, which includes a mixture of essential multivitamins including calcium, magnesium, selenium, zinc and vitamins B and C. Other therapies include an immune defense, which also contains ascorbic acid, an inner beauty therapy containing biotin and a hangover formula with an anti-nausea medication.

In addition to overall wellness, they also offer infusions with NAD+, a naturally occurring chemical in the body thats used as a supplement for a variety of ailments including high blood pressure and fatigue. The Millers have begun using NAD+ to treat patients with COVID long haul a term employed to describe a range of post-infection conditions to reduce brain fog.

I really like having this IV component, Elizabeth said. I see patients in primary care who are actively sick and you dont always have something to help them feel better quickly.

With a background as a nurse anesthetist, Rob has experience using ketamine as an anesthetic for his patients, which has helped inspire him to provide ketamine infusions, given in micro doses, for patients with depression, anxiety, PTSD and chronic pain.

Elizabeth, too, has used ketamine in emergency room settings in hospitals, and says its used for conscious sedation and to reduce pain and anxiety.

Next year, once they have sufficient equipment at the clinic, Rob plans to begin ketamine therapies for patients who have had an evaluation or have received a referral.

In a separate ketamine infusion room, while music plays in the background, patients are awake while hooked up to an EKG monitor, blood pressure monitor and pulse oximeter with oxygen and medications on hand in case a patient has an adverse reaction. Rob will also offer guided therapies to pair with the infusion.

During the infusion, you can feel a little floaty, Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth calls the wellness aspect of their business an infusion therapy crossover, and while she plans to focus on primary care, Rob will exclusively perform the ketamine infusions.

Its a really nice complement to primary care, which is above and beyond my passion, Elizabeth said. I love primary care and we wanted to be partners in what we did.

In addition to IV and ketamine infusions, the clinic also provides services for athletes who are seeking muscle recovery formulas and they hope to set up an IV booth at events like the Spartan Race, which is hosted annually in Kalispell.

For more information, visit http://www.myalpinehealth.com.

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An Infusion of Wellness - Flathead Beacon

Ads and PSAs about strokes focus on what the average person needs to look for: facial drooping, arm weakness, and speech difficulties.

But what the average person doesnt know about strokes is even more troubling.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 800,000 people suffer strokes each year in the United States the global number is roughly 15 million meaning on average, someone has a stroke every 40 seconds and someone dies of a stroke every four minutes.

Of those millions of strokes, about 87 per cent are ischemic, meaning theyre caused by a blockage of blood flow to the brain the others are hemorrhagic, caused by bleeding in the brain. Treating ischemic strokes generally involves blood thinners that must be administered within three hours of the brain injury with the goal of clearing the blockage and minimizing brain damage.

This can only be done once the type of stroke is confirmed through a CT scan, and due to its time sensitive nature, only a tiny percentage of stroke patients receive such treatment.It is one thing to stop further injury from stroke, however, and quite another to repair damage that has already been caused by it.

If you could treat patients within that three-hour window or before the CT scan, and its helping, it would be a blockbuster drug. Christopher J. Moreau, CEO, Algernon Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Thats the goal of Algernon Pharmaceuticals (CSE: AGN | OTCQB: AGNPF | XFRA: AGW).

The company is poised to begin clinical trials early in 2022 on the use of N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic compound known as The Spirit Molecule, to treat people who have suffered ischemic strokes.

As a clinical stage drug-repurposing company that looks for new applications for drugs that are already approved and considered safe, Algernon is studying the use of sub-hallucinogenic amounts of DMT to promote the re-growth of brain cells in stroke patients, says its CEO, Christopher Moreau, who has more than 30 years of senior management experience in private and publicly traded companies, including a strong background in biotechnology research.

A research paper published in Elsevier in May 2020, titled N,N-dimethyltryptamine reduces infarct size and improves functional recovery following transient focal brain ischemia in rats, showed that DMT aided with rewiring, cell growth and making new connections, or neuroplasticity and neurogenesis.

The papers results also showed growth of cells when DMT was applied, and the animal testing demonstrated that treatment produced in rats that were subjected to strokes showed smaller areas of dead brain cells and quicker recovery of motor function.

More recently, Moreau notes, Charles River Laboratories conducted pre-clinical research for Algernon at its facility in Finland, studying whether neurons exposed to different sub-hallucinogenic concentrations of DMT for an hour would show signs of growth, something researchers elsewhere, including Prof. David Olson of the University of California, had previously observed. The result? The cortical neurons that were subjected to DMT showed a 40 per cent increase in growth compared to control samples.

The purpose of these studies, Moreau says, is to identify a blood concentration (dose) and exposure time to target in the companys Phase 1 study to optimize the neuroplastic effects of DMT without triggering hallucinations.

That the desired effects take place without causing psychedelic effects is key for Algernon, Moreau says, noting that previous drugs being tested for stroke that caused hallucinations in patients were not advanced. After suffering a brain injury, which often causes a sense of confusion, sending someone on a psychedelic journey could be problematic.

While DMT is a controlled substance in most countries. there is, however, openness in some places to exploring its healing properties. In the United Kingdom, for instance, government regulators gave the go-ahead to the first clinical trial using a psychedelic drug to treat depression this year.

Also in the U.K., Algernon filed a scientific advice meeting request with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to conduct clinical stroke studies using DMT and reported that they received positive feedback from the agency.

With its application to conduct clinical trials set for Q4 of this year, Algernon has planned two phases of research: Phase 1, which is to begin in January 2022, will investigate safety and dose of DMT treatments; Phase 2 will additionally examine the use of DMT for acute stroke patients and as a supplemental treatment for patients as they begin their therapy post stroke.

Future research may also examine whether DMT can be used in treatment for hemorrhagic strokes, and that will depend on whether the drug is shown to not increase a patients blood pressure or heart rate. While this has been shown to be the case in Dr. Rick Strassmans research (author of the book DMT - Spirit Molecule and Algernon consultant), Algernon would like to confirm this data in their Phase 1 study at various dose levels.

Algernons goal is to be able to treat stroke patients as quickly as possible possibly via IV in an ambulance meaning such treatment would not be dependent on a CT scan.

If you could treat patients within that three-hour window or before the CT scan, and its helping, Moreau says, it would be a blockbuster drug.

Moreau is optimistic about the research and bullish on the companys leadership, especially two relatively recent additions to its board of directors.

Dr. Mark Williams, a director, was a cofounder of the Algernon Pharmaceuticals drug repurposing program and was the companys chief scientific officer until earlier this year. He has more than 15 years of experience in drug and medical device development, has authored multiple patents, and has expertise in taking companies from the discovery process to Phase 2 trials.

The other new board member is chairman and director Harry J. F. Bloomfield, a lawyer, Harvard MBA, and philanthropist who has served on numerous public and private boards, including that of Miraculins Inc., a medical diagnostic company where he also served as chairman.

Weve tried to surround ourselves with quality medical and scientific consultants who are living and breathing this space, and with Directors who can directly impact the company with their background and experience Moreau says, noting, I think we were lucky to have both join.

With that help at the top and its clinical trials on the immediate horizon, Algernon is well-positioned to build value for investors.

I think we have a very exciting and unique business model, he says. In the drug world, repurposing a drug that has a known safety history and trying to investigate it to find out if it has new potential uses, its very cost effective. And the drug can be brought to the market in under five years, compared to 13 years for a new chemical entity and it holds all of the same potential as a new drug.

And while DMT isnt the only drug Algernon is researching its also investigating ifenprodil as a potential treatment for coughs and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that causes scarring of the lungs the psychedelic is squarely targeted at a massive and growing market.

Strokes are costly, and not just to the many people who suffer long-term disability as a result. Stroke-related costs totalled almost U.S. $46 billion between 2014 and 2015 alone in the U.S., says the CDC, a number that includes health care and medicine costs as well as missed work.

On the potential revenue side, the stroke treatment market was valued at approximately U.S. $8 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach a value of about U.S. $15 billion by 2027.

Were in a very good position, Moreau says. And we are planning to move into our Phase 1 DMT stroke trial in January, 2022.

For more information on Algernon Pharmaceuticals, visit its website here.

Make sure to follow Algernon on social media for the latest news:

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Can we treat strokes with alternative medicine? - BNN

About the authors: Arthur L. Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty professor of bioethics and the founding head of New York University School of Medicines Division of Medical Ethics. Nicholas Agar is distinguished visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Australia. Oliver Feeney is a researcher with the Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Tbingen and Centre of Bioethical Research and Analysis, National University of Ireland (Galway). Vojin Raki, full professor, is founding director of the Center for the Study of Bioethics and head of the Steering Committee of the Continental Divisions of the International Chair in Bioethics, World Medical Association Cooperating Center.

The pandemic isnt done with us yet. The emergence of the Omicron variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 has put new urgency behind national vaccination campaigns. But a look around the world at different vaccination strategies finds both hesitancy and no easy answers.

Were scholars from different parts of the globe. We surveyed national responses to the pandemic in nations we knew and which had adequate vaccine supplies. We were looking for lessons that can be learned about various efforts to rein in the pandemic using vaccination. What are the moral norms that have fueled different outcomes? Should we follow a particular set in moving forward?

Start in Australia and New Zealand. In spite of differences of political style between conservative Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and progressive New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern, both societies settled on similar approaches to the pandemic. Both aimed to get as many people vaccinated as soon as possible. But the Australian and New Zealand vaccination programs were slow to start. Australias rollout in February 2021 promptly ran into trouble because it relied on the domestically produced AstraZeneca vaccine. Stories of a rare blood-clotting condition significantly slowed uptake, requiring an awkward pivot toward mRNA vaccines. New Zealand dodged this issue by making the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine available to all from the launch of its vaccination program.

The slow start of Australasian vaccination programs can be partially attributed to over a year of internationally celebrated success at eliminating the virus by community-oriented and personal-sacrificing stay-at-home orders and social distancing. For much of the pandemic death from Covid-19 was something Australasians watched on TV. But despite temporary success the approach failed. Outbreaks of the Delta variant led to a significant acceleration of vaccination in both nations with expectations of very high rates of compliance. Ardern hopes to achieve a vaccination rate of 90% of New Zealanders. There are similar aspirations in Australia. In both nations there are concerns about lagging rates of vaccination in some populations, for example, among indigenous Australians and among Mori and Pasifika in New Zealand.

Sweden by contrast did not fight the Covid-19 pandemic with lockdowns. The idea of naturally acquiring herd immunity proved not only controversial, but a manifest failure. Nonetheless, some continue to tout the herd immunity approach, such as the small but vocal members of the Great Barrington group in the U.S.

In spite of initial vaccine hesitancy, now more than 80% of Swedes are vaccinated with one dose and well over 50% with two. Swedish epidemiologists have assessed thatbetween 52% and 82% of vaccinated Swedes is sufficient to attain herd immunity. In that light, it appears that Sweden has finally achieved the immunity it desirednot in a natural way but supplemented with mass vaccination.

Serbia differs from the three mentioned countries in two ways. First, vaccine hesitancy in Serbia is more widespread. Second, Serbia has been subjected to populist autocratic rule in various periods during the past decades. The consequences are that, in spite of a rapid major success in vaccine acquisition, years of anti-Western official media campaigns have taken their toll. These campaigns, which have included anti-medicine messages, culminated in believers in alternative medicine obtaining dominant attention in state-controlled media at the beginning of the pandemic. State-run campaigns used the pandemic for political purposes, and Covid-19 deaths and infection rates were falsified. Serbia is now among the countries with the highest infection rates per capita in the world. Several days this fall Serbia was even world No. 1. Half of the population is still vaccine-hesitant. Serbia has reached a vaccination rate of around 50% with at least one dose, with stockpiles of unused vaccines produced mostly in China, the U.S., the U.K., and Russia.

In the Republic of Ireland, by November 2021 over 90% over the age of 12 had received at least one dose. However, this number fell by about half for Central and Eastern European immigrant communities. The overwhelming majority of politicians have advocated vaccinations. Nonetheless, vaccines are not mandatory and it is unlikely that any such policy will be adopted. The Republic of Ireland has one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in Europe.

Nearby in Northern Ireland, which has experienced years of intercommunal conflict and division, things are different. In September, the seven-day average death rate per 100,000 people from Covid-19 was 10 times higher than the Republic of Ireland rate. One local doctor memorably attributed those differences to the presence of an anti-authoritarian, an anti-government thing, which runs through society, particularly on the [Irish] nationalist side. Thats in addition to other factors associated with lower uptake rates of vaccinations, such as social deprivation. Overall, in Northern Ireland, the levels of vaccination uptake by persons aged 12 (and above) is 85% vaccinated with a single dose.

Northern Ireland has a dual identity in politics and culture. One can also compare it with the U.K. as a whole, where the 7-day average death rate per 100,000 was half the rate in Northern Ireland. Of the four nations of the United Kingdom, as of November 2021, Northern Ireland has the lowest rates of vaccine uptake.

In the U.S., efforts have focused on state and local initiatives to increase vaccination. The federal government has authority to impose vaccination requirements for federal workers, the military, and those wishing to enter the U.S. Mandates have been used for these groups and while challenged they have been upheld insofar as they permit masking and testing as alternatives. Vaccination rates are nearly 100% in these populations. States have tried persuasion and financial incentives to boost vaccination rates. As of late-November 59.3% of the entire U.S. population was fully vaccinated. The New England states all reported rates over 70%. The poorest rates of vaccination under 45% were in Alabama, Wyoming, Idaho, and West Virginia, with many other states reporting under 55%. Opposition to government-imposed mandates at the state level has been strong, with some states attempting to prohibit mandates of any kind. Some private entities, including hospitals, airlines, banks, food delivery companies, groceries, casinos, athletic teams, and small businesses, have moved to mandates as a condition of employment with impressive success. The federal government is seeking to impose mandates on businesses in the name of worker safety, which has triggered a broad legal battle over federal authority.

In the U.S. government mandates are met with far more resistance than those imposed by private businesses. Ideological divisions tend to correlate with higher voluntary compliance in more left-leaning blue states than in conservative red states, where there seems to be more sympathy for mandates that permit religious exemptions.

What can we learn from this varied picture? Public health in general and vaccination in particular are as much about politics, values, and public trust as they are about science and facts. Isolation and natural infection both failed as policies. Distrust in authorities and government, particularly in societies that are divided or polarized, has led to innovation, including fines and compensation. But no nation has achieved easy or huge success. Worries about vaccine safety, sometimes rooted in reports of adverse events, at others in social-media misconceptions, undercut vaccine rates everywhere. In every nation there are subpopulations that either have particular distrust for the government mandates or simply lack ready access to healthcare.

Mandates may be the answer to achieving higher rates of vaccination. But if they are not rooted in convincing arguments about moral obligation and community protection, they can evoke loud opposition, further diminishing social trust.

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barrons and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback toideas@barrons.com.

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Countries Have Tried Mandates, Isolation, and Herd Immunity to Curb Covid - Barron's

GROWING POSITIVITY, ONE TEA LEAF AT A TIME. Brianna Vodvarka launched her tea business, Black Kettle Tea, as a way to find joy during dark times. And now, it has become a passion project. (Submitted photo)

Menomonies Brianna Vodvarka found herself in a dark place in 2017 while struggling with depression. After working on her mental health, Vodvarka embarked on a journey with a new, rather unusual, hobby as a means to form structure and healthy habits in her life: growing tea from the ground up.

What started as a passion for gardening turned into her very own business Black Kettle Tea Shoppe, a loose-leaf tea and organic product company that she runs solo.

"I've always felt like the black sheep," Vodvarka said. "Feeling like (the) black sheep, and you use a kettle for tea that's where the (business) name is from."

I've always felt like the black sheep.

Feeling like (the) black sheep, and you use a kettle for tea that's where the (business) name is from.

Brianna Vodvarka

Owner of Black tea kettle Shoppe

Black Kettle Tea offers a wide variety of organic, homegrown herb mixtures for all tea lovers to enjoy. Vodvarka said she uses traditional lavender, chamomile, and peppermint flavors, but likes to keep it minimal so the herbs can do their own thing.

I dont add flavors, she said. I let the herbs do the talking for themselves. I also try to do everything organically and like to know where all the ingredients are coming from.

Since living in Wisconsin limits the ability to grow all the ingredients needed to make the tea, Vodvarka works with organic growers in Florida to gain access to more produce.

Every month, she comes out with custom blends based on the time of year and rotates out the loose-leaf options to add more variety.

And, perhaps most unique to her business, is the ability to offer custom-made tea. If a customer is looking for a specific blend, no matter how obscure, Vodvarka works to make it happen.

"It's almost like alternative medicine, she said. There is something to help everyone.

In the past, she has made blends to help people with sleeping problems and asthma. But loose-leaf tea is just one of many products made and sold by Black Kettles Tea. Other items for sale include tea-based bath bombs and moon mist sleep mist.

According to Vodvarka, she is working on a new skincare line that will include a face wash and toning spray. However, the new skincare line isnt the only operation in the works.

"I wanted an old-fashioned tea room, she confessed. I want to open a shop that would allow people to create custom blends (themselves).

Until then, customers can buy Black Kettle Tea Shoppe products online at blackkettleteashoppe.com. Vodvarka also has loose-leaf teas available at the Broom & Crow, the Menomonie Market Food Co-Op, Silver Creek Herbals, and The Local Store.

For more information, check Black Kettle Tea on Facebook or on Instagram.

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WHAT'S THE TEA? New Local Biz Creates Organic Teas - Volume One