The world has failed its Covid science test due to the deliberate tunnel vision of the World Health Organization - WHO.
Addressing the September 2021 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York concerning the world’s failure to distribute vaccines more fairly, UN Secretary- General Antonio Guterres admonished the international community, “We passed the science test. But we are getting an F in ethics.” This is barely half true. Shockingly, the WHO itself has been sleepwalking through this pandemic with one eye closed to basic cellular biology.
Stimulated by billions of dollars in government subsidies, Western and Chinese pharmaceutical companies raced in record time to develop and produce safe, highly effective vaccines that have saved millions of lives and will eventually bring this episodic pandemic juggernaut slowly to a conclusion. An unpredictable denouement will ensue where the SARS- CoV- 2 ( SARS- 2) virus may be tamed and live on as just another common cold infecting people when they are young, providing immunity against its more severe manifestations. Alternatively, it may become an annual seasonal infection like influenza with varying degrees of severity and fatality as different viral strains are sequentially replaced each year via mutation. It will be several years before evolutionary biologists determine which path this virus will eventually take.
Well- compensated, heroic vaccine manufacturers deserve humanity’s gratitude, and an A- plus for their almost miraculously rapid innovative efforts. However, the United States National Institutes of Health ( NIH) and the WHO deserve a failing grade for ignoring basic scientific knowledge and the obvious insights they should have utilised to provide effective therapies, not only for initial Covid- 19 symptoms but mid- stage and late- stage disease as well. Evidently, any scientific understanding that does not rebound to the bank- accounts of the most profitable industry on earth are not worth pursuing, no matter how many people die as a result. This is the monumental ethical failure we should be condemning.
This is not the first deadly viral epidemic or pandemic to rage out of control in the last few decades. Did the WHO fail to learn lessons they should have from previous ones that should be applied to reduce the morbidity and mortality of this current plague? Instead, scientific tunnel vision coerced by the extraordinary profitability of their benefactors, blinded those entrusted to protecting world health. That prevented them from implementing the lessons they should have but failed to learn from the AIDS and Ebola pan- epidemics. Millions of lives that could have been saved from Covid- 19 have been lost. What caused this epic historic failure in medicine and humanitarianism?
What have scientists learned so far during this pandemic? What has been the cost of placing all the world’s bets on the dazzling miracle of vaccines rather than focusing equal attention and resources on applying known broad- spectrum antiviral therapies against Covid- 19? Did the WHO totally ignore known methods of retarding viral disease and reducing deaths? Disastrously, they did.
The advancing science of immunology and virology are overwhelming complex. Hundreds of scientific papers are published each month. The WHO might have had an excuse for overlooking one nugget of scientific insight if I had not placed it directly into the hands of the Director- General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom, just over one month before China announced a new viral disease was causing flu- like symptoms in Wuhan on the 12th of January 2021. I asked Mr Adhanom to read my essay “The tuberculosis, HIV, selenium- deficiency positive feedback loop” about how selenium helps against HIV and lung diseases like TB, and the Lancet medical journal review article by Margaret P. Rayman, “The importance of selenium to human health.” I talked with the Director- General on 5 December 2019 at the International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa ( ICASA) Conference handing him a sheaf of scientific papers outlining how inhibiting NF- kB could reduce the selfperpetuating positive feedback loop of inflammation, viral replication, and disease progression. Less than an hour after speaking with Adhanom, I opened the door of the WHO boardroom at the Kigali Rwanda Conference Centre and saw twenty of my scientific handouts strewn out along the entire length of the meters long conference table. A golden opportunity to understand and reduce the impact of the ensuing SARS2 pandemic had been aggressively ignored by numerous representatives of the WHO, just as they had during the AIDS and Ebola pan- epidemics. Like the NIH, WHO politics dictates that if scientific knowledge does not profit the pharmaceutical industry, it must be ignored. The WHO serves the interests of its pharmaceutical paymasters while ignoring a well- known, fundamental cellular mechanism – one as basic as gravity or fire – that NF- kappaB is the primary stimulant of viral replication. This gross negligence resulted in millions dying, becoming pandemic detritus buried six feet under as a herd of pharm- industry buffaloes stampeded in hot pursuit of excess profits that leave nothing but the faint sound of crying, tears, and poverty behind. People who lose friends and loved ones are none the wiser to this monumental medical malpractice.
Could a blazingly obvious therapeutic strategy, as simple as reducing fuel from a growing fire by inhibiting NFkB, have saved lives in this pandemic? And the last one? And the next? Yes. But what chance does such an obviously simple, safe, available, and cheap therapeutic intervention stand against the most profitable, influential industry in the world that wants to charge governments one hundred times as much for new pills with roughly equivalent antiviral benefits? Not much. Common people’s lives are sacrificed on the Golden Alter of Profits to keep the never- ending stream of dollars churning for corporations, undisturbed by irrelevant distractions such as ethics, morality, or well- established science that can help preserve health and life.
What obvious scientific clues did the WHO and NIH miss, cover- up, or ignore? As Bill Gates responded to me at the 2016 International AIDS Conference in Durban after my question about selenium was cut short halfway through by a prominent pharmaceutical researcher, “If we missed something, we should go back and check it out.” Indeed, we should Mr Gates.
Millions of lives would have been saved by now if we had.
There has been a mountain of evidence developed by scientists over more than twenty years that have elaborated how selenium can be hugely beneficial in treating, and even helping prevent viral disease. However, like the words from the 1969 song by The Who, “Pinball Wizard”, “that deaf, dumb and blind kid [ the WHO/ NIH] sure plays a mean [ pandemic] pinball.“Just as twenty copies of my scientific essay, excerpts from medical journal articles, and the Lancet medical journal article about the importance of selenium in viral disease, were abandoned on the WHO boardroom table in Rwanda, one would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to miss the following indicators. Plenty of scientists understand this well. Below are quotes from a few that tried to educate and advise through their journal articles.
Writing in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology Yijin Wang explained, “higher selenium status has been shown to improve the clinical outcome of infections caused by... SARS- CoV- 2.” He reports that a selenium “compound was found to have the strongest inhibitory activity against the SARS- CoV- 2” out of 10,000 compounds tested. In the Exceli Journal of Experimental and Clinical Science Sojit Tomo writes, “emerging evidence in Covid- 19 reiterate the crucial role selenium and selenoproteins may have in the pathophysiology of Covid- 19 patients.”
In Redox Biology Jinsong Zhang elaborates, “Significant clinical benefits of selenium supplementation have been demonstrated in a number of viral infections.” Laurent Hiffler reported in Frontiers in Nutrition that, “Selenium deficiency is associate with higher susceptibility to RNA viral infections and more serious disease outcome.” He suggests “Selenium... may have a significant place in Covid- 19 spectrum management.” In an article titled “Nutritional status of patients with Covid- 19” in the International Journal of Infectious Disease Jae Hyoung Im detailed that selenium deficiency increased from 44.4 percent of those with mild- Covid, to 100 percent of those on ventilation, in severe disease, and death. This indicates the increasingly rapid loss of selenium in Covid- 19 is a major factor in disease progression and death.
It is painfully obvious that an absolute mountain of scientific evidence exists, all pointing in the direction that selenium supplementation should be beneficial in both early and late Covid therapy. If WHO paid attention to basic cellular biology and not just the pharmaceutical corporations that dazzle them with multi- milliondollar donations, millions of lives could have been saved. However, with their Geneva bank account stuffed full of ten- million- dollar checks signed by the pharmaceutical industry, the WHO proceeds as if nothing is wrong with a corrupted system. In pandemic after viral epidemic, it allows people to die in countries around the world, who are totally unaware of this system that ignores basic science, as it obsequiously serves the interests of the international pharmaceutical- industrial- complex. This perfidious infinity- loop of unethical behaviour contributes to a mounting death toll. Does no one question why twenty months into this pandemic there is still no recommended early therapy for Covid- 19 while intensive care unit physicians struggle valiantly against mid and late- stage Covid disease. They ignore a valid scientific approach they could easily apply that would reduce mortality rates by 50 percent or more. That huge benefit in lives saved using selenium has been repeatedly demonstrated in previous epidemics of Marburg, Hantavirus, Ebola and even HIV.
No one can live without food, water, or oxygen. Likewise, no one can survive if a virus drains their cells and immune system of selenium. That is because selenium is essential for all aspects of immune function. It is the fuel that makes the immune system run. It is also essential for the formation of the antioxidants that keep cells healthy and detoxified. If a person loses enough selenium - just as if they are starved of oxygen, food, or water - they perish. Deadly viruses like HIV, Ebola and SARS- 2 also require selenium. As these diseases progress and viral replication eventually soars through the roof, they deplete human selenium resources faster and faster. As the immune system’s selenium level falls though the floor, CD4 count plummets, the immune system collapses, and the cytokine storm, sepsis, organ failure, and death follow like night follows day.
Although various fatal viruses infect different cells and work in slightly different ways, HIV, Ebola, and SARS- 2/ Covid all follow the same course but on different timetables. The faster they replicate and the more selenium they deplete based on how much each viral particle incorporates, the faster they kill. The Ebola virus genetically encodes and rapidly uses up a lot of selenium, draining the body of this essential trace mineral. Most people die of Ebola within three weeks. HIV needs selenium to form its outer envelope. As a “slow” virus that the immune system suppresses for a while and keeps its replication in check, HIV takes from six to fourteen years to cause death, depending on the viral strain. HIV drains selenium slowly until late- stage AIDS when the viral load skyrockets, selenium plummets, the immune system loses control, and the resulting cytokine storm causes sepsis and organ failure. Covid- 19 follows a similar but much faster path, similar to Ebola or other highly fatal haemorrhagic fever viruses like Marburg virus and Hantavirus - just with a much lower mortality rate.
The original SARS- 2 viral strain took four to six weeks to kill a person.
The newer delta variant that produces viral- loads one hundred times higher and progresses much faster than the original strain of the virus can cause death in two weeks. It also sickens and kills much younger people in their 20s, 30s and 40s than did the original strain.
In 1975 Dr. David Baltimore won the Noble Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the reverse transcriptase enzyme that affects cancer development and some viral infections including HIV. Baltimore probably deserves a second Noble for his extremely important discovery in 1986 of nuclear- factor kappa- binding ( NF- kB) a “rapid acting primary transcription factor” that affects the production of cellular and viral proteins. For the next twenty years this human protein became one of the most intensely studied discoveries in medical history. Why are we failing to apply what today is essentially common scientific knowledge?
Currently, physicians use corticosteroid drugs including dexamethasone, prednisone, and hydrocortisone to treat hospitalised Covid patients. Corticosteroids strongly inhibit NFkappaB and both inflammation and viral replication. That saves many lives. However, no one discusses how these drugs work.
They do so by strongly inhibiting NF- kB. Why do doctors not discuss this? Why do they wait until patients are hospitalised and the disease is raging out of control before they apply NFkB inhibitors? Besides corticosteroids, many other drugs inhibit NF- kB with much lower side effects. These drugs could be used to reduce inflammation and viral replication, treat early Covid infection safely, and keep people out of the hospital. They include aspirin, ibuprofen, indomethacin, sulfasalazine, and the mineral supplement selenium. This failure to apply obvious innovations that have been used repeatedly and successfully before constitutes an international breach of trust on the part of the medical and world health community. It is utterly irresponsible and unethical on a historic scale and violates the United Nations Universal Charter of Human Rights.
If there is a fire in a building one tries to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher while it is still small, before calling the fire department to send their fire- engines to the rescue. If one waits until a building is engulfed in flames, it is often too late. The same principle applies to the inflammation caused by Covid- 19.
Why are we waiting for the entire body to be in flames and not using low- cost, available NF- kB inhibitors to dampen the fire early on? What is wrong with the World Health Organization and all those experts that should be applying known scientific advances to reduce the damage done to humanity and national economies by this pandemic? Are these drugs too cheap? How many more pandemics must humanity endure before the WHO utilizes well- known science to save the lives of innocent people? Someone should be held accountable. The WHO deserves an F in medical ethics. Tragically, there is plenty of blame to go around for failing to save millions who have already perished.