Africa may have reached pandemic's holy grail'; AFLDS vindicated

Long after some scientists and journalists noted the West’s dismal results in its “war” against COVID-19 compared with sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), mainstream news has finally acknowledged the success of the third world region. A recent NPR article announced: “Africa may have reached the pandemic's holy grail.”

Third World Success

The report celebrates the findings of immunologist Kondwani Jambo which suggests that “it has now been months since Malawi entered something akin to what many countries still struggling with massive omicron waves consider the holy grail: the endemic stage of the pandemic, in which the coronavirus becomes a more predictable seasonal bug like the flu or common cold.

“In fact, top scientists in Africa say Malawi is just one of many countries on the continent that appear to have already reached — if not quite endemicity — at least a substantially less threatening stage.”

This despite the grueling conditions in SSA:

• Half the population in SSA lives on less than $1.25 per day (Borgen Project)
• The average life expectancy in SSA is 46 (Borgen Project)
• SSA has a “harrowing state of health” (McKinsey & Company) 
• Malnutrition is “associated with 54% of deaths in children in developing countries.” (Pan Afr Med J.) and causes anemia and vitamin and mineral deficiency levels of up to 80% (Proc Nutr Soc).

Pink Elephant?

So how did impoverished SSA succeed where the US didn’t? 

Our World in Data illustrates the shocking failure of the West’s virus “war” in a chart plotting cumulative COVID-19 deaths per million people over time for 3 Western nations as well as the whole of Africa and the 3 poorest nations on the globe, all in Africa:

Ignoring the proverbial pink elephant in the room, NPR fails to even consider the possibility that the failure of the West in the pandemic could be a direct result of Western COVID policies, such as:

• bans on anti-malaria medications like Hydroxychloroquine and anti-parasitic medications like Ivermectin (despite evidence of their effectiveness);
• radical changes to hospital protocols, including recommending the use of Remdesivir, under an Emergency Use Authorization, despite the fact that findings, “based on postmarketing real-life data from >5000 COVID-19 patients, support that kidney disorders, almost exclusively AKI, represent a serious, early, and potentially fatal adverse drug reaction of remdesivir;”
• radical changes to care home policies, including the administration of powerful sedatives like midazolam to dementia patients to prevent them from wandering the corridors and being exposed to the virus;
• isolation of patients from their family while unable to see the faces of their caregivers; and
• overuse of mechanical ventilation and sedation, causing unnecessary lung injuries, as described by the former head of a COVID unit: 

While not addressing any of these Western policies, NPR gives credit to … a lack of vaccination: “Less than 5% of Malawians have been fully vaccinated. So Jambo says their apparent resistance to severe disease was likely built up as a result of all the prior exposure to earlier variants.”

Just in case anyone would get the idea that the solution therefore lies in curbing vaccinations, NPR quotes Dr. Jambo, whose research salary is paid by the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme:

"We need to ensure that at least 90% of people above the age of 50 are vaccinated."

Who wasn’t shocked?

Researchers

Despite the surprise of mainstream media at Africa’s success viz-a-viz the West, as early as May, 2020 Professor Geoff Mitchell, of the University of Toledo Medical School, reported ”a profound initial disparity in COVID mortality rates between developed western nations (DWN) and countries in malaria-endemic regions.”

In follow up research together with Dr. Sonya Naryshkin, Professor Mitchell confirmed his initial findings: “The profoundly lower mortality rates for people living in SSA versus the DWN [developed western nations] appears to be explained by widespread use of antimalarial drugs which have unanticipated crossover efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 as well.” 

AFLDS 

AFLDS wasn’t surprised either. Its founder, Dr. Simone Gold, recognized the quality of Dr. Mitchell’s work and invited him to speak at the group’s first White Coat Summit in Washington D.C. in July 2020.  AFLDS went on to prominently post treatment options for COVID-19.

Suppressing Pfizer’s competitors 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) refused to give credence to the findings of Dr. Mitchell and others that touted the benefits of previously known treatments, as well as the very statistics from Africa themselves, which continued to fall in line with Dr. Mitchell’s predictions and not with those of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), which predicted in April 2020 that “over 1.2 billion Africans would be infected and 3.3 million would die this year.”

Instead, the NIH warned that “Ivermectin is not approved by the FDA for the treatment of any viral infection” and likewise “recommends against the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine.”

Dangerous treatment?

The NIH’s strong opposition to ivermectin comes despite it previously being touted as a “wonder drug” which led to a Nobel Prize for the discovery of the drug from which it is derived and for having, “been used safely by hundreds of millions of people to treat river blindness and lymphatic filariasis.^”

Politicians step in 

Adding to the pressure against alternative treatments exerted by the nation’s health authorities, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the majority whip of the House of Representatives, used his power as Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis to demand AFLDS provide written, detailed answers to a series of multipronged questions about the organization’s private, internal policies. 

Clyburn opened his October 2021 letter with accusations against the doctors’ group: “Predatory actors have sought to capitalize on the crisis by touting misinformation and using it to market disproven and potentially hazardous coronavirus treatments. 

“America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) … offers … consultations and prescriptions for drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin … 

“While AFLDS is not alone in providing these services, it is reportedly among the top purveyors of questionable treatments nationwide and a prominent source of misinformation related to the coronavirus.”

In his letter, Clyburn did not reveal any connections he may have to Pfizer Inc., the very company that gains untold profits from its COVID mRNA vaccine and treatment pill when alternative treatments are prohibited.

Conflict?

The Pulitzer Award winning Post and Courier uncovered that "Clyburn has taken more than $1 million in pharma money in a decade, far surpassing peers …

“While South Carolina’s longest-serving congressman threw his support to research and the growth of the multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry in his district, drug- and device-making companies, rewarded him by giving liberally to his campaign war chest for years.

“U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, has collected more in the last decade from powerful political action committees attached to the pharmaceutical industry than anyone else in the House or Senate, according to Kaiser Health News and a Post and Courier analysis.

“During that time, he has brought in more than $1 million in campaign contributions from an industry known for aggressive lobbying.

Both sides of the political aisle

While Clyburn is a leading House democrat, OpenSecrets reveals that Senate Republicans receive more than twice as much money from Pfizer Inc as Democrats. In fact, Republican Steve Scalise, the Ranking (most senior minority party) member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and copied on Clyburn’s letter to AFLDS, tied Clyburn for Pfizer’s maximum donation in the 2020 election cycle.

Fierce Pharma sums up the funding situation: “In the past decade, members of Congress from both parties have received about $81 million from 68 pharma PACs.” 

Media as well

The media also enjoys major funding from pharmaceutical companies, their biggest advertisers in non-election years. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reports that “Big Pharma's $9.6 billion annual advertising budget gives these unscrupulous companies control over our news and television outlets. Strong economic drivers (pharmaceutical companies are the biggest network advertisers) have long discouraged mainstream media outlets from criticizing vaccines manufacturers. In 2014, [Fox] network president, Roger Ailes, told me he would fire any of his new show hosts who allowed me to talk about vaccine safety on air. "Our news division," he explained, "gets up to 70% of its ad revenue from pharma in non-election years.”

CNN, a major beneficiary of those advertising dollars, accused Dr. Gold of having a video removed from social media for coronavirus misinformation without any mention of what that misinformation was.

One media outlet even bragged about having hacked AFLDS records to check how many “hundreds of thousands” of patients accessed hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin through AFLDS. 

Saving lives

In light of Dr. Jambo’s research and other encouraging COVID data coming out of malaria-endemic SSA, it appears that AFLDS is the one that should be bragging about those prescriptions.

The remaining question is how many more lives would have been saved if not for media media censorship and political attacks on differing COVID views.