Biden booster bonanza, COVID math mystery, Domestic flight mandate, NY Nurses coerced, COVID dishonorable discharge, Oregon kissing allowed, Ula Tinsley, Dairy fat OK, Polish health care crisis, Bromelain vs COVID-19, Gut health for mental health, Families divided, Rise of the organic food market and MORE!

September 24th, 2021 3-5PM ET

Friday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:

Biden announces expanded booster rollout amid confusion over eligibility President Joe Biden said his administration will begin to deliver booster shots this week after the nation’s two leading health agencies endorsed a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine for individuals older than 65 and people at high risk. “We have the tools to beat Covid if we come together as a country and use the tools we have,” Biden said in a speech Friday. “This week we took a step in protecting the vaccinated with booster shots. I’ve made clear all along … the decision of which booster shot to give and who will get them is left to the scientists and the doctors.” The announcement came hours after CDC Director Rochelle Walensky overruled an agency advisory committee to allow health care workers and other people with significant on-the-job Covid-19 exposure to get the Pfizer-BioNtech booster. That decision ended weeks of speculation about whether the Food and Drug Administration and CDC would move to authorize the shots before the president’s end of September deadline. In addition to the elderly and those with workplace exposure to Covid-19, the Pfizer-BioNTech booster will now be available to nursing-home residents, people 18 and older with underlying health conditions that increase their chances of severe illness. But the policy does not allow for boosters to be given to people initially vaccinated with the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson shots.

The Emperor Has No Clothes: COVID Math Simply Doesn’t Add Up From the beginning of the series of events branded as a global health emergency, many people have smelled a rat. Whether one looks at leaders’ willingness to engage in wanton economic destruction, or the rapidity with which billionaires have amassed new wealth or the multisectoral efforts to link and mine people’s intimate data, it is not hard to recognize that something much larger than a health crisis is afoot. However, even if one restricts oneself to the narrow confines of the health narrative, 18 months of data — emerging in spite of ferocious censorship — have repeatedly illustrated that the official story is full of lies and omissions. One of the biggest holes in the story is the trail of destruction that the experimental COVID vaccines are leaving in their wake, with hundreds of thousands of reported injuries in the U.S. alone and, according to some statisticians, as many as 150,000 dead Americans. With this level of damage after just nine months, now is as good a time as any to reexamine “COVID math” and highlight some of the embedded falsehoods that cast serious doubt on official and corporate pronouncements about risks and benefits.

Domestic flight vaccine mandate? Not ‘off the table’ The White House’s recommendation to require all visitors flying into the United States to provide proof of vaccination has sparked speculation over whether the federal government will ultimately require passengers on domestic flights to be vaccinated as well. The speculation increased even before the new requirements when Dr. Anthony Fauci told podcast The Skimm earlier this month that he would support requiring vaccination for air travel. “If you want to get on a plane and travel with other people … you should be vaccinated,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a top medical adviser to the Biden administration, said. White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients, announcing the international requirement Monday, fed that speculation by refusing to rule out an eventual domestic travel requirement. “We’re not taking any measures off the table,” he said. But such a requirement has led aviation-related stakeholders to complain that the logistical hurdles would be challenging at best and a nightmare at worst. For example: Who would check for proof of vaccination? What safeguards would be in place to ensure that the documents weren’t fraudulent? Would the paper cards currently given to the vaccinated suffice? What sort of central records exist to help airlines track if people are vaccinated? How would airlines handle children not yet eligible for such a vaccine? And would such a requirement extend to other sorts of travel, such as buses and trains?

NY governor refusing to budge on vaccine mandate for nurses: You’re replaceable Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul remained adamant that health care workers get vaccinated by Sept. 27 in the state or be replaced. “To all the healthcare providers, doctors and nurses in particular who are vaccinated, I say thank you. Because you are keeping true to your oath,” Hochul said during a visit to Rochester Wednesday. “To those who won’t, we will be replacing people.” “We are sending out a call statewide. There are facilities, for example in New York City, that 98% of their staff are vaccinated, they don’t have a worker shortage. We are working closely with these hospitals to find out where we can get other individuals to come in and supplement nursing homes and other facilities,” she added. Her comments come after she had already said on Tuesday while visiting the Niagara power project that “those who refuse, we will find replacements.” New York hospitals have already struggled with the vaccine mandate in recent weeks, with nurses in a maternity ward at an upstate hospital resigning over the state’s vaccine mandate earlier this month, forcing the hospital to temporarily halt all baby deliveries after Sept. 24.  And more are expected to follow.

White House opposes NDAA provision banning dishonorable discharge for COVID-19 vaccine refusal The White House said it “strongly opposes” a provision in the 2022 spending bill that would block the Pentagon from dishonorably discharging a service member who refuses to get the COVID-19 vaccine. A section in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act would limit military commanders’ options for disciplining those who fail to comply with the vaccination mandate, the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement of administration policy Wednesday. Section 716 of the NDAA would prohibit service members who are discharged over vaccine refusal from receiving anything other than an honorable discharge, noting that “many Americans have reservations about taking a vaccine that has only been available for less than a year.” The Pentagon has described the vaccine mandate as a “lawful order” that must be obeyed. “To enable a uniformed force to fight with discipline, commanders must have the ability to give orders and take appropriate disciplinary measures,” the White House said in a statement. The White House also said it opposes Section 720 of the NDAA, which would establish procedures for which members may be exempted from receiving the mandated COVID-19 vaccine for “administrative, medical or religious reasons, including on the basis of possessing an antibody test result demonstrating previous COVID-19 infection.”

Both vaccinated? Oregon health officials say you can kiss on dates again! Back in April of 2020, the Oregon Health Authority put out some advice for daters in the time of COVID: “You are your safest sex partner.” It’s hard to remember back that far, to one million years ago or a year and a half, depending on how time works. But back then, it seemed like this would be just a few weeks of self-fulfillment and then it would be right back out there, to the apps, to the bars, swapping fluids willy-nilly with whoever was cutest and most-available. What innocents we were then, with such limited imaginations. For people who want to date but are also somewhat responsible, it has been a long, hard 18 months of pandemic behavior. But now, OHA has a new message: If you’re vaccinated, and your date is vaccinated, and you both are generally being safe otherwise, get intimate! OHA’s dating advice really isn’t too wild. In fact, it’s the same advice all the experts keep giving everyone, even people who aren’t looking for new kissing partners — get vaccinated, wear a mask in crowded spaces, don’t go anywhere or do anything if you have any symptoms of any illness. The main thing? Get vaccinated so you don’t die of a preventable illness.

Hour 2 Special Guest – Ula Tinsley

Dairy fat from milk, butter, and cheese could actually PREVENT a heart attack Could a little extra butter actually be good for your heart? A new study reveals that consuming dairy fat from products like butter, cream, and cheese could prevent a heart attack. An international team finds people who consume higher levels of these fats are less likely to develop cardiovascular disease. For years, experts have urged adults to skip fat laden dairy foods, including milk, to stay healthy. Now, for the first time, scientists have measured intakes by levels of fatty acids in the blood. “Many studies have relied on people being able to remember and record the amounts and types of dairy foods they have eaten, which is especially difficult given dairy is commonly used in a variety of foods,” says study co-author Dr. Matti Marklund from Uppsala University, in a statement. “Instead, we measured blood levels of certain fatty acids, or fat ‘building blocks’ that are found in dairy foods, which gives a more objective measure of dairy fat intake that doesn’t rely on memory or the quality of food databases,” Dr. Marklund continues. “We found those with the highest levels actually had the lowest risk of CVD.”

Polish protesters warn that health care crisis is looming When a priest arrives at a hospital in Chorzow to perform the last rites, nurse Mariusz Strug can see the fear in dying patients’ eyes. “After the sacrament, they knew what was happening,” he said. But there have been no psychologists available to offer any consolation to the patients. Strug and another nurse would try to offer some kind words, but they were strained to the limit caring for 60 patients in their COVID-19 ward. “People come to us and they want us nurses to perform a miracle,” said Strug. Exhausted from working in such an understaffed system, he is among a group of health care workers who have come to Warsaw from across Poland for an around-the-clock protest outside the prime minister’s office that has gone on for nearly two weeks. After a year and a half of the pandemic, and with Poland on the cusp of a fourth surge of COVID-19 infections, nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers and other health care workers have come to urge Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and other authorities to make deep reforms to the health care system, arguing that it is in danger of collapse. The pandemic showed us how bad the health care system is,” said Gilbert Kolbe, a nurse and spokesman for the protest movement. “This is the last chance to do something before it will be too late. We won’t be able to avert a crisis coming in five, ten years.”

Bromelain Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 Infection in VeroE6 Cells Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The initial interaction between Transmembrane Serine Protease 2 (TMPRSS2) primed SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein and host cell receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2) is a pre-requisite step for this novel coronavirus pathogenesis. Here, we expressed a GFP-tagged SARS-CoV-2 S-Ectodomain in Tni insect cells. That contained sialic acid-enriched N- and O-glycans. Surface resonance plasmon (SPR) and Luminex assay showed that the purified S-Ectodomain binding to human ACE-2 and immunoreactivity with COVID-19 positive samples. We demonstrate that bromelain (isolated from pineapple stem and used as a dietary supplement) treatment diminishes the expression of ACE-2 and TMPRSS2 in VeroE6 cells and dramatically lowers the expression of S-Ectodomain. Importantly, bromelain treatment reduced the interaction between S-Ectodomain and VeroE6 cells. Most importantly, bromelain treatment significantly diminished the SARS-CoV-2 infection in VeroE6 cells. Altogether, our results suggest that bromelain or bromelain rich pineapple stem may be used as an antiviral against COVID-19.

Gut Health ‘Vitally Important’ for Mental Health Disturbances in gut microbiota are associated with depletion of anti-inflammatory bacteria and proliferation of pro-inflammatory bacteria, a pattern tied to several major psychiatric disorders including depression, bipolar disorder (BD), schizophrenia and anxiety, new research shows. A meta-analysis of 59 studies, encompassing roughly 2600 patients with psychiatric conditions, showed a decrease in microbial richness in patients with psychiatric conditions vs controls. In addition, those with depression, anxiety, BD, and psychosis had a similar set of abnormalities in the microbiota, particularly lower levels of Faecalibacterium and Coprococcus — two types of bacteria that have an anti-inflammatory effect in gut — and higher levels of Eggerthella, a bacterium with pro-inflammatory effects. “The wealth of evidence we have summarized clearly demonstrates that the gut microbiota is vitally important to the wider mental health of individuals,” lead author Viktoriya Nikolova, MRes, Centre for Affective Disorders, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom, told Medscape Medical News.

Half Of Vaccinated Americans Might Not Spend The Holidays With Unvaccinated Family And Friends, Poll Finds Americans’ vaccination status against Covid-19 is likely to influence how they spend the holidays this year, as a new Harris poll finds that vaccinated Americans are broadly hesitant of spending time with unvaccinated family members and friends—including at holiday gatherings. The poll, conducted from September 17 to September 19 among 2,055 U.S. adults, including 1,454 vaccinated ones, found 50% of vaccinated respondents are either “extremely” or “considerably” hesitant to spend the holidays with unvaccinated family members or friends. Only 38% said they were not hesitant about making holiday plans with the unvaccinated, while 12% said it’s a non-issue because all their family and friends have gotten the shot. A slightly larger share of 52% of vaccinated respondents said they would be very or somewhat uncomfortable about attending a holiday dinner or gathering knowing some attendees are unvaccinated. A 54% majority of all respondents said vaccination status would be a factor in deciding whether or not they will travel or attend events as part of their holiday plans.

The rise of the organic food market The organic food industry is a booming business, with sales surging last year by 12.4% to $61.9 billion. However, most people don’t know what “organic” really means. In 2014, brand consultancy BFG surveyed 300 shoppers. Of those shoppers, 70% purchased organic food, but only 20% of respondents could define organic. According to the USDA, “organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods.” In other words, “organic” by itself isn’t necessarily a health claim. It just means the food was produced using organic methods. These methods include a list of federal standards addressing things like soil fertility, pest and weed control and animal raising practices.  Some health-conscious consumers gravitate toward organic over conventional products due to concerns about highly processed foods, artificial ingredients, as well as the effects of pesticides, hormones and antibiotics. According to a study by Pew Research, 76% of adults surveyed bought organic foods for their health value, followed by environmental concerns at 33% and convenience at 22%.

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