Fat shaming isn't allowed. But mask shaming is. One imagines that the issue could be addressed without the shaming. But the simple things like exercise, weight control and adequate Vitamin D are pushed aside in favor of more social disorder. Power and control seem to dominate.
—a virus that behaves like no other virus—so mysterious scientists can’t figure it out (easy to forget how long it took for consensus to settle on HiV as cause of AIDS)
—neglect of potential treatments in favor of vaccine development
—silencing of dissenting views re virus, treatment, risk
—Tony Fauci is the hero of the fight against virus and sets all policy and scientific agendas
1. What if people WANT to be in a vulnerable group, this gives obese people who are very anxious another reason to demand that we all take measures to protect them. 50-60% of American adults are obese so they took your facts and instead of losing weight, classed themselves as victims. Which is easier?
2. I was overweight/obese for 20 years, I only reversed it by eliminating most or all plants from my diet. Medical dogma is for a balanced diet that doesn’t work. How can doctors and nurses seriously tell people to lose weight when they themselves are often quite fat? And they will not tell the right way to do it?
First, I'm 100% behind the baseline thesis here. BMI and mortality in COVID has been entirely ignored - the only agency permitted us by the Medical establishment: "wash your hands, stay at home, wear a mask" - with nary a peep about weight loss or exercise. Notice: "lockdown" and "weight loss" are - almost certainly - mutually exclusive, especially for those who can't afford to turn apartments into gyms. Closing gyms "for health reasons" is also deeply misguided. If they were deliberately trying to fatten us all up to be more vulnerable to COVID, they did a very good job of it.
Related: Kaiser Permanente also noticed physical activity is also very protective. Just 21 minutes per day - "meeting PA guidelines" = 150+ minutes of PA per week.
A nit: the claim about HIV not infecting heterosexual women in a material way is perhaps a US-centric view. I was surprised to find out: "Of the estimated 6000 new infections that occur globally each day, two out of three are in sub-Saharan Africa with young women continuing to bear a disproportionate burden. Adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 years have up to eight fold higher rates of HIV infection compared to their male peers." Who knew? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4893541/
Alex, the best thing that came out of this year was discovering you. You are a true journalist, brave truth teller and deserve more accolades than attacks. I'm so sick and tired of telling people let's support our immune systems and get healthy. 7 years as a dietitian I've learned no one wants to do that. It makes me sad and annoyed that my life has been destroyed over this as someone that tries very hard to stay healthy. The laziness and mental complacency of some Americans is truly frustrating. Thank you for continuing to fight for the truth.
I worked with AIDS patients in the 1980's when it was a death sentence. There was stigma and intolerance directed towards people who got AIDS, the sort of victim blaming and shaming. As a healthcare worker (RN), I would rather frequently get looks of disgust when I told people that I took care of AIDS patients, and would get asked, "how can you do that?", along with, "that's disgusting." When Covid rolled around, I again saw the same manifestation of blaming and shaming of people who got Covid. Worse, there would even be absolute glee over deaths of public figures on the Right, for example, Herman Cain. Calling any 'unapproved' outdoor event "a super-spreader", and demonizing people protesting for the right to go outside their homes or open their businesses as sociopaths who are out to kill Grandma, or as political extremists. Unfortunately, human beings have a long, long way to go. The fear is not over, and it's unlikely that it ever will be. Holding onto power and control is the order of the day, and Covid, as Jane Fonda called it, is "God's gift."
Are you sure HIV causes AIDS? Please provide reference. Before you roll your eyes & scroll past, check out Kary Mullis, Luc Montagnier, Christine Maggiore, or Peter Duesberg, author of "Inventing the AIDS Virus." (just for fun, try to purchase that book on Amazon) https://youtu.be/y68ugCb2z60
Thanks Alex for drawing attention to this study and its important conclusions.
While I have seen much discussion of obesity as a risk factor, as well as age as a risk factor, I hadn't previously seen risk stratification of obesity specifically within the younger age cohorts, which you have drawn our attention to, here.
What is most important to understand is that any major risk factors specific to younger cohorts will necessarily be drowned out in any mortality or severe illness statistics by the risk factors that may be unique to the oldest cohorts alone, because severe illness is so heavily age-stratified toward older age. This is why you must factor out the young people separately to gain meaningful information.
As stated by the authors:
"The incidence of severe COVID-19 increased with age, therefore the attributable risks were generally higher in people aged 40–59 and 60–69 years but attributable fractions were higher in those aged 20–39 years"
(the "attributable fraction" i.e., the fraction attributable to obesity)
and
"Among people aged 20–39 years, each BMI unit increase above 23 kg/m2 was associated with increased risk of hospital admission" (Normal BMI is 18.5-24.9, so for example, over 155lbs for a 5'9" person begins to statistically increase your risk).
and
"Age modified the association between BMI and severe COVID-19 outcomes significantly. The HR [hazard ratio] was highest in the youngest age groups and decreased progressively with increasing age becoming non-significant in the 80 years and older age group for death."
(Obesity as a risk association becomes drowned out by the over-80's subgroup which dominates in any analysis of the mortality numbers, because within that subgroup, there is no obesity-related association.)
Cheers Alex. I have read each of your covid booklets because no one was providing logical data that explained the many crazy media stories, except you! Thank you for being a journalist! You are true to the profession. It’s difficult to find real investigative journalist these days.
The Australian Government`s reaction to the AIDS issue was completely over the top ( google AIDS grim reaper ad) and scared the living shite out of many when it truly wasn`t a serious issue for anyone not taking intravenous drugs or having anal sex with gay men. A look at the Australian AIDS death toll is revealing. Similarly, we are ALL terrified of being exposed to the " harsh, damaging" rays of the sun, despite the fact better than 50% of us are in little danger of skin cancer from exposure ( probably only 10-20% of us are seriously at risk from even limited sun exposure due to very fair skin and maybe another 20-30% at moderate risk ). These are scattergun public health policies, rather than targeting the truly at-risk demographic with sniper-rifle focus. Covid is an extreme example, where a more-than-likely bio weapon-grade respiratory flu has been exaggerated beyond all logic....emotion rules. I see Mike the pro-covid vaxxer continue to provide the "over 600,000 " deaths due to covid, even though the reality is that those number are well known to be exaggerated, whilst the true number of vaxxine adverse effects are under-reported....it is quite sad. The at-risk ( elderly and obese/seriously immuno compromised) should get the vaxx, and anyone who is happy to play Russian roulette with the vaxx, but it is a crime to mandate it for those that would prefer to take HCQ or Ivermectin, etc. It is DEFINITELY a crime to even suggest the young and healthy take it, when the vaxx harm risk far outweighs the actual virus for that demographic. And ANYONE taking it needs to admit they have zero clue about longer-term adverse effects, a fact I notice that pro-covid vaxx folks brush aside or ignore outright as fantasy. In Oz, our States have made it ILLEGAL for doctors to proscribe HCQ/Ivermectin for covid patients, which should be decried roundly but is accepted by our media and medical advisors as, somehow, logical.....Anyhow, I`m not an anti vaxxer, my 3 adult kids, myself and their mother had all previous jabs, and my wife works in the frontline medical field and has had both Pfizer jabs, despite my concerns, so, stick any labels you might want to give me up your clacker. I won`t have this jab, nor any future jab, until I have plenty of evidence it works and minimal risk. Good work, Alex
This is a really good point to have made, as Alex usually does. There's a book called "Power" written by a Harvard guy that talks about how the AIDS "crisis" was managed in detail that makes a similar point. As for the topic of obesity, I doubt obese women will ever stop wearing the masks. They seem to like hiding behind them. Even now, when practically everyone knows that there is no point to wearing masks, I still see heavyset women masked up everywhere I go. It's like the new Hijab for Western Women. A kind of marker of virtue and a signal they don't want to be looked at. The obvious terror campaign the Public Health people deployed to get compliance from the public seems to have mostly impacted these tragic young women who already never felt comfortable in public because they are overweight and unattractive. But of course like AIDS and gayness back in the day, nobody can talk about this openly because it hurts fat girls feelings.
Great correlation. Rogan has been on and on about the lack of anyone talking about health, yet you concisely nailed it - maybe even he knows to not touch the fat shaming 3rd rail.
Alex: I read your excellent post; however, to me the assumed link between obesity and COVID-19 suffers from all the problems of New Science. Since early spring 2021 “scientific” papers on COVID seem to be published before peer reviews and frequently retracted after publication. In this very weak paper, there is no reference to the risks of obese people to other upper respiratory illnesses. Moreover, as RT-qPCR tests may give up to 99% of false-positive results, this paper belongs clearly in the garbage heap of history (and science).
Fat shaming isn't allowed. But mask shaming is. One imagines that the issue could be addressed without the shaming. But the simple things like exercise, weight control and adequate Vitamin D are pushed aside in favor of more social disorder. Power and control seem to dominate.
Many other provocative/perplexing connections:
—a virus that behaves like no other virus—so mysterious scientists can’t figure it out (easy to forget how long it took for consensus to settle on HiV as cause of AIDS)
—neglect of potential treatments in favor of vaccine development
—silencing of dissenting views re virus, treatment, risk
—Tony Fauci is the hero of the fight against virus and sets all policy and scientific agendas
1. What if people WANT to be in a vulnerable group, this gives obese people who are very anxious another reason to demand that we all take measures to protect them. 50-60% of American adults are obese so they took your facts and instead of losing weight, classed themselves as victims. Which is easier?
2. I was overweight/obese for 20 years, I only reversed it by eliminating most or all plants from my diet. Medical dogma is for a balanced diet that doesn’t work. How can doctors and nurses seriously tell people to lose weight when they themselves are often quite fat? And they will not tell the right way to do it?
First, I'm 100% behind the baseline thesis here. BMI and mortality in COVID has been entirely ignored - the only agency permitted us by the Medical establishment: "wash your hands, stay at home, wear a mask" - with nary a peep about weight loss or exercise. Notice: "lockdown" and "weight loss" are - almost certainly - mutually exclusive, especially for those who can't afford to turn apartments into gyms. Closing gyms "for health reasons" is also deeply misguided. If they were deliberately trying to fatten us all up to be more vulnerable to COVID, they did a very good job of it.
Related: Kaiser Permanente also noticed physical activity is also very protective. Just 21 minutes per day - "meeting PA guidelines" = 150+ minutes of PA per week.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2021/04/07/bjsports-2021-104080.full.pdf
A nit: the claim about HIV not infecting heterosexual women in a material way is perhaps a US-centric view. I was surprised to find out: "Of the estimated 6000 new infections that occur globally each day, two out of three are in sub-Saharan Africa with young women continuing to bear a disproportionate burden. Adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 years have up to eight fold higher rates of HIV infection compared to their male peers." Who knew? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4893541/
Most Chinese are slim. Americans suffer an epidemic of obesity.
Alex, the best thing that came out of this year was discovering you. You are a true journalist, brave truth teller and deserve more accolades than attacks. I'm so sick and tired of telling people let's support our immune systems and get healthy. 7 years as a dietitian I've learned no one wants to do that. It makes me sad and annoyed that my life has been destroyed over this as someone that tries very hard to stay healthy. The laziness and mental complacency of some Americans is truly frustrating. Thank you for continuing to fight for the truth.
I worked with AIDS patients in the 1980's when it was a death sentence. There was stigma and intolerance directed towards people who got AIDS, the sort of victim blaming and shaming. As a healthcare worker (RN), I would rather frequently get looks of disgust when I told people that I took care of AIDS patients, and would get asked, "how can you do that?", along with, "that's disgusting." When Covid rolled around, I again saw the same manifestation of blaming and shaming of people who got Covid. Worse, there would even be absolute glee over deaths of public figures on the Right, for example, Herman Cain. Calling any 'unapproved' outdoor event "a super-spreader", and demonizing people protesting for the right to go outside their homes or open their businesses as sociopaths who are out to kill Grandma, or as political extremists. Unfortunately, human beings have a long, long way to go. The fear is not over, and it's unlikely that it ever will be. Holding onto power and control is the order of the day, and Covid, as Jane Fonda called it, is "God's gift."
Are you sure HIV causes AIDS? Please provide reference. Before you roll your eyes & scroll past, check out Kary Mullis, Luc Montagnier, Christine Maggiore, or Peter Duesberg, author of "Inventing the AIDS Virus." (just for fun, try to purchase that book on Amazon) https://youtu.be/y68ugCb2z60
You can see the full chart that Alex included at page 5 of the appendix, which shows the left portion missing on the screenshot so you can see the breakdown by age. Page 5, here: https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S2213-8587(21)00089-9/attachment/88cb76d8-d2d5-4b73-9a05-fffefad4de8d/mmc1.pdf
Thanks Alex for drawing attention to this study and its important conclusions.
While I have seen much discussion of obesity as a risk factor, as well as age as a risk factor, I hadn't previously seen risk stratification of obesity specifically within the younger age cohorts, which you have drawn our attention to, here.
What is most important to understand is that any major risk factors specific to younger cohorts will necessarily be drowned out in any mortality or severe illness statistics by the risk factors that may be unique to the oldest cohorts alone, because severe illness is so heavily age-stratified toward older age. This is why you must factor out the young people separately to gain meaningful information.
As stated by the authors:
"The incidence of severe COVID-19 increased with age, therefore the attributable risks were generally higher in people aged 40–59 and 60–69 years but attributable fractions were higher in those aged 20–39 years"
(the "attributable fraction" i.e., the fraction attributable to obesity)
and
"Among people aged 20–39 years, each BMI unit increase above 23 kg/m2 was associated with increased risk of hospital admission" (Normal BMI is 18.5-24.9, so for example, over 155lbs for a 5'9" person begins to statistically increase your risk).
and
"Age modified the association between BMI and severe COVID-19 outcomes significantly. The HR [hazard ratio] was highest in the youngest age groups and decreased progressively with increasing age becoming non-significant in the 80 years and older age group for death."
(Obesity as a risk association becomes drowned out by the over-80's subgroup which dominates in any analysis of the mortality numbers, because within that subgroup, there is no obesity-related association.)
The lockdown of my gym had a lot to do with me gaining 20 lbs. in the last year. I will not forgive or forget!
Cheers Alex. I have read each of your covid booklets because no one was providing logical data that explained the many crazy media stories, except you! Thank you for being a journalist! You are true to the profession. It’s difficult to find real investigative journalist these days.
The Australian Government`s reaction to the AIDS issue was completely over the top ( google AIDS grim reaper ad) and scared the living shite out of many when it truly wasn`t a serious issue for anyone not taking intravenous drugs or having anal sex with gay men. A look at the Australian AIDS death toll is revealing. Similarly, we are ALL terrified of being exposed to the " harsh, damaging" rays of the sun, despite the fact better than 50% of us are in little danger of skin cancer from exposure ( probably only 10-20% of us are seriously at risk from even limited sun exposure due to very fair skin and maybe another 20-30% at moderate risk ). These are scattergun public health policies, rather than targeting the truly at-risk demographic with sniper-rifle focus. Covid is an extreme example, where a more-than-likely bio weapon-grade respiratory flu has been exaggerated beyond all logic....emotion rules. I see Mike the pro-covid vaxxer continue to provide the "over 600,000 " deaths due to covid, even though the reality is that those number are well known to be exaggerated, whilst the true number of vaxxine adverse effects are under-reported....it is quite sad. The at-risk ( elderly and obese/seriously immuno compromised) should get the vaxx, and anyone who is happy to play Russian roulette with the vaxx, but it is a crime to mandate it for those that would prefer to take HCQ or Ivermectin, etc. It is DEFINITELY a crime to even suggest the young and healthy take it, when the vaxx harm risk far outweighs the actual virus for that demographic. And ANYONE taking it needs to admit they have zero clue about longer-term adverse effects, a fact I notice that pro-covid vaxx folks brush aside or ignore outright as fantasy. In Oz, our States have made it ILLEGAL for doctors to proscribe HCQ/Ivermectin for covid patients, which should be decried roundly but is accepted by our media and medical advisors as, somehow, logical.....Anyhow, I`m not an anti vaxxer, my 3 adult kids, myself and their mother had all previous jabs, and my wife works in the frontline medical field and has had both Pfizer jabs, despite my concerns, so, stick any labels you might want to give me up your clacker. I won`t have this jab, nor any future jab, until I have plenty of evidence it works and minimal risk. Good work, Alex
This is a really good point to have made, as Alex usually does. There's a book called "Power" written by a Harvard guy that talks about how the AIDS "crisis" was managed in detail that makes a similar point. As for the topic of obesity, I doubt obese women will ever stop wearing the masks. They seem to like hiding behind them. Even now, when practically everyone knows that there is no point to wearing masks, I still see heavyset women masked up everywhere I go. It's like the new Hijab for Western Women. A kind of marker of virtue and a signal they don't want to be looked at. The obvious terror campaign the Public Health people deployed to get compliance from the public seems to have mostly impacted these tragic young women who already never felt comfortable in public because they are overweight and unattractive. But of course like AIDS and gayness back in the day, nobody can talk about this openly because it hurts fat girls feelings.
As Robbie the fire answered when asked by Dave Smith "who's at risk?" Robbie: "fat and old people."
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5q5Yej8aHudns04mIJdEiF
Great correlation. Rogan has been on and on about the lack of anyone talking about health, yet you concisely nailed it - maybe even he knows to not touch the fat shaming 3rd rail.
Alex: I read your excellent post; however, to me the assumed link between obesity and COVID-19 suffers from all the problems of New Science. Since early spring 2021 “scientific” papers on COVID seem to be published before peer reviews and frequently retracted after publication. In this very weak paper, there is no reference to the risks of obese people to other upper respiratory illnesses. Moreover, as RT-qPCR tests may give up to 99% of false-positive results, this paper belongs clearly in the garbage heap of history (and science).
Here in the US people eat a lot of processed food. It’s time to go back to protein vegetables and a little starch. So easy!