FDA Recall of "Life-Threatening" Breathing Machines: Horse Guide

On corruption, sloppiness, and horses.

This story is a collection of news bits that came my way. I am working on something else but interesting bits keeps coming, so I am tossing a few things on your plate as food for thought.

Photo by Mikael Kristenson via Usplash

#1

First, in no relation to the coronavirus, last month the FDA recalled a number of Phillips breathing machines.

Quote:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said earlier this summer that the recalled machines pose risks that could be "life-threatening, cause permanent impairment and require medical intervention."

Polyester-based polyurethane foam that reduces sound and vibration in the machines can break down and result in users breathing in chemicals or swallowing or inhaling black debris, possibly resulting in asthma, skin and respiratory tract irritation and "toxic and carcinogenic effects" to organs including the kidneys and liver, the agency warned.

My idealistic consumer question is, and how would a patient know that their life is being endangered by a prescribed medical device? How would an average medical-authority-trusting patient have any clue that the breathing machine prescribed by their medical-authority-trusting doctor could give them cancer? Maybe, just maybe, our world is a little bit more like a traditional jungle than a clean house of consumer safety? It’s not like the history of “consumer safety” in the U.S. is lacking examples of negligence and corruption.

Tessa Lena a.k.a. Tessa Fights Robots ❤️ @TessaMakesLove

Who is getting the adventurous end of the stick?

buff.lyOn Science and Faith-Based Product SafetyLet’s pretend we are talking about a car.

And maybe the moral of the fable is that when conscientious skeptics don’t take safety for granted, hawk over the regulatory agencies, and spend days or years digging through boring data and unreadable source documents, people should say “thank you” and send them flowers— instead of calling them dangerous conspiracy theorists? Just a thought.

Let me bring up an epistemological angle and some history. In the middle of the 20th century, my old homeland was going through a “scientific craze” similar to what we see in America today. City-educated folks were sent to villages to teach “backward-minded” peasants how to farm and how to live. On the menu were such things as wonderful fertilizers, replacing breastfeeding with formula, and so on. Well, what do you know, come my time, and suddenly it was discovered that the fertilizers were toxic and made people sick, that breast milk was actually better for babies’ than formula, and so on. And mind you, in the Soviet Union, it wasn’t driven by profits. It was driven by pure enthusiastic arrogance! That story taught me early on to “fact-check the fact-checkers,” if you know what I mean.

Additionally, in the 1950s in the Soviet Union, it was DDT galore. DDT was everywhere. It was sprayed from the planes and onto entire large areas. According to my mom, when she was at a summer camp as a kid, DDT planes came spraying and covered the trees and the grass with the dust—all while the kids were there. And guess what, it was all done in the name of “good science.” Safe and effective!

Looking at history, it seems prudent to hold one’s horses when it comes to taking anyone’s word on safe-and-effective-ness.

Speaking of horses,

#2 (the horse saga)

Zero Hedge and the Desert Review did a good job telling the story, so I’ll leave it at that. The horse is officially dead.

Meme by an unknown hero

#3

You have probably seen this but since we are talking about product safety, it’s a good time to repost. What’s a little metal contamination in life-saving shots…

A side note: Japan is known for its obsession with quality. Can we assume the same the same about modern America?

#4 (Israel)

Quote:

The Israeli case clearly shows that neither covid vaccine mandates nor “vaccine passports” are suitable means to limit or end the pandemic. This is because covid vaccines are unable to reduce coronavirus infections and transmission, and they lose much of their effectiveness even against severe disease within a few months, a medical fact already known from influenza vaccines.

It should be noted that even in Israel, covid vaccines continue to provide some protection against hospitalization and severe disease (about 50%). Nevertheless, double-vaccinated Israeli citizens will again be counted as ‘unvaccinated’ and will require a third dose. It may well be, however, that “booster shots” have in fact increased recent coronavirus infections (“post-vaccination spike”)

#5

This one is a collection of highly technical tweets looking into the fine machinery of the mRNA v-es.

In plain English, what it says is that the technology of encoding genetic messages is extremely complex and requires finesse. And, according to the author, the mRNA v-es that have been bestowed on us are sloppy and can do God knows what.

With this one, I would very much like to hear from geneticists. I have run the story by a couple of medical and scientific professionals who have confirmed that the concerns expressed in the analysis could be / are valid. On my end, I do not possess the technical expertise to assess the validity of this work, and the only thing that rings true to me on a sensory level is that the “sloppiness” conclusion is consistent with the overall “move fast and break things” approach of many profit-enthusiastic biotech entrepreneurs.

#6

Worry not though, the American Medical Association is focused on safety … messaging.

In this salesman toolkit, they provide ready-made social media posts, talking points, and neat neurolinguistic programming tricks to sell the product to skeptics.

#7

And finally, despite the fact that Australia looks like a fallen bastion—and this last bit of news is more than a little depressing—I am including it with hope that we start waking up to our dignity, like the grass that grows through asphalt and insists on its relationship with the sun.

Aaron Kheriaty, MD @akheriaty

In Australia, NSW Health limits alcohol into locked-down tower block: “Residents are allowed to receive a ration of one of the following: 6 beers or pre-mixed drinks, 1 bottle of wine, or one 375ml bottle of spirits. Excess alcohol is being confiscated.”

news.com.auSix-beer limit for homes in strict lockdown<p>Residents in apartment blocks locked-down by NSW Health are having their alcohol deliveries policed as part of a policy to limit the number of drinks being consumed each day.</p>