Tony Brasunas

I wrote last week on the experimental injection. Perhaps you want to get it, perhaps you’ll say no thanks. That’s your choice. Let’s turn now to the other option: treatments for the virus.

I don’t believe it’s entirely a coincidence, in light of the billions in profits now raining down on the drugmakers, that news has been suppressed about successful treatments for covid that use inexpensive generic medications. If there are effective treatments for a disease, why would every last man, woman, and child on earth need an expensive, risky preventative injection?

I’ve been following developments with treatments via independent media closely for months now. Here is an exploration of the best performing treatments to date and where the latest studies are with each. Although I’ve been researching these things for many months, I’m certainly not a doctor, and so I’ve probably missed some things — please feel free to reply and point them out. I’m always learning and this is an evolving topic. 

The best of the many suppressed treatments for COVID-19:

1. Ivermectin

Ivermectin (brand names: Soolantra, Stromectol, Sklice) was isolated in Japan in the 1970s from streptomyces bacteria found to have tremendous anti-parasitic properties. It’s been used widely ever since, across the world, and won its inventors a Nobel prize.

Evidence for the use of this safe and well-established medication to treat COVID-19 emerged last summer and has been growing ever since.

Here is a list of over 30 studies showing strong to very strong benefits as both prophylaxis and treatment. Ivermectin Studies >

I’d say read the studies first, they’re the most important thing. But if you’re not in the mood to sift through studies, or if you already have read the studies and want more perspective, these videos are a very useful (and quick) way to gain awareness:

• Here is a doctor testifying before Congress late last year on the effectiveness he and many other doctors have found with Ivermectin: Dr. Pierre Kory testifies about Ivermectin >
  
• Here’s a good explanation of Ivermectin’s use from a fairly typical mainstream American physician, Dr. Christy Risinger >
  
• And here’s Dr. John Campbell, a sober British doctor, laying out the case for Ivermectin >
  
• An anecdotal story from this week: A family in Buffalo, NY, that went against their doctor’s recommendations and acquired Ivermectin to treat their grandmother saved her life: After judge orders hospital to use experimental Covid-19 treatment, woman recovers >
  
• The latest work from the FLCCC, a summary of their studies rolled into a single protocol: the IMASK+ Protocol >

2. HCQ + Zinc

Hydroxychloroquine (brand name in the US: Plaquenil) is derived from Quinine, which gives HCQ the “quine” at the end of its name, and which in turn was originally isolated centuries ago from the bark of the Peruvian cinchona tree, the country’s national tree (that link is a fascinating history of the cinchona tree and its herbal and medical uses in the Andes and Europe during colonial times), and the tree is nicknamed the “Fever Tree” for all the ailments its bark has been used to treat. It has been used for centuries to treat all manners of illnesses and for a time was believed by Europeans to have magical properties.

The theory behind the HCQ + Zinc treatment for COVID-19 is that zinc kills the virus by preventing its replication inside cells, and HCQ is necessary to open a pathway into the cells. Because of this, do not put much weight on studies that have looked at just zinc or just HCQ, even though that’s essentially what most studies did early on–or in one case used toxic doses of HCQ. One such flawed and suspicious study was finally retracted by Lancet. 

There’s a third component used generally as well: Azithromycin (Zithromax), an antibiotic that protects against infection and also seems to trigger a bacteria renewal that flushes out dead virus and encourages new internal flora. It’s the whole package that is working well. HCQ + Zinc + Zithromax.

Here’s a list of several dozen studies on HCQ + Zinc treatment and prophylaxis: HCQ Studies >

Again, the studies are best, but nearly equally compelling are interviews and videos with doctors on HCQ. The problem is, most have been censored and taken down as part of the science censorship of this tense era. So bear with me and watch some videos on unusual sites where they haven’t yet been taken down:

• This was perhaps the most censored video of 2020: A dozen doctors in Washington DC speaking out about the stunning results they were having treating COVID-19 with HCQ + Zinc >
  
  • Highlights from that long censored video. Condensed to 8 minutes >
    
• Here’s a solid interview with Dr. Zev Zelenko, one of the dozen or so leading discoverers of the treatment, explaining the treatment >

• Here are charts and metrics counting lives that have been lost due to suppressed treatments.
  
• To pick one study, this came out late last year finding a 80+% reduction in hospitalizations and 75+% reduction in deaths.
  
• The main study used to halt treatment using HCQ + Zinc last Spring was a Lancet article that was retracted (very rare for the Lancet to retract anything) for poor science and unfounded data.
  The Guardian explored how such shoddy science was possible.
  
• Here’s an ABC News article — one of the first — when some doctors were already having success with hydroxychloroquine as early as April 2020. 

In truth, HCQ + Zinc has likely been in use by the wealthy and powerful for many months. Dr Zelenko, who’s treated hundreds if not thousands with this regimen, and who’s name is probably most synonymous with the treatment here in the US, was thanked publicly in a tweet by Rudy Giuliani after his recovery which also referenced Trump’s medical team. It seems the HCQ + Zinc treatment is why these two (visibly less-than-healthy) septuagenarians had short 3-day bouts with covid.

3. Budesonide

Budesonide (brand name: Pulmicort) is a corticosteroid that has been used via inhalation to reduce inflammation in the lungs.

Budesonide and other inhaled / nebulized corticosteroids (ICS) have shown strong promise in treatment of COVID-19, although they have been used significantly less than the two treatments mentioned above. There’s also less information about ICS treatments. My sense nevertheless is that in a just and open scientific environment, this ICS treatment would deserve as much investigation and bold, speedy scientific inquiry as any of the others.

Dexamethasone is similar to Budesonide and has been shown to be effective in more severe COVID-19. Budesonide is a drug more specifically designed to target the lungs, where the most serious COVID-19 issues occur, so it stands to reason Budesonide could and likely does help. Doctors who have used it successfully swear by it. More studies are needed here, whereas there are already sufficient studies (to my mind) supporting the two treatments above, and fortunately several studies are about to complete on this. Hopefully they’re not suppressed by the media.

– Interview with Dr Richard Bartlett on use of Nebulized Steroids for COVID treatment >

– Is Budesonide a Coronavirus Treatment? Experts Weigh in About COVID-19 ‘Cure’ >

Some ongoing studies begun last Summer and Fall that should conclude very soon:

– Barcelona Hospital Clinic: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04355637

– Oxford University: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT04416399

Those are the suppressed treatments I’m aware of. Always add vitamins C and D to any treatment or prophylaxis plan, as they both provide noncontroversial help in the body’s fight against coronaviruses.

I’m, again, not a doctor. If you’re interested in prevention or treatment, discuss these options with your doctor. If your doctor is unaware of their benefits, here’s a list of knowledgeable doctors.

4. Over the Counter

For people who are unable or unwilling to take one of the prescription routes above, there are combinations of over the counter treatments that seem to be working. I’m including this section not because there are studies here, but because social media descriptions of beating covid without a prescription seem to converge on a few things. Yes, there should be scientific studies on these. Again, for informational purposes only here.

It seems that this combination is working for people, both as prevention and as treatment:

– High daily doses of Vitamin C and Vitamin D

– Quercetin

– About double the USRDA daily dose of of Zinc

Quercetin is easier to acquire than HCQ and seems to provide many of its “zinc ionophore” benefits. For symptomatic cases, people nebulizing/inhaling very dilute Hydrogen Peroxide, 30-to-1 with water, seem to have had success.

Science Still Not Favoring Masks

As I mentioned in my last email, the science on masks is mixed at best. There’s a dichotomy in the studies: pre-2020 studies and 2020 studies. Observational studies that were done during the year 2020 are about the only studies that demonstrate significant benefit to mask use to prevent transmission, and while that at first seemed to be enough for me, even many of these found no benefit so I read further and remembered that observational studies cannot establish causation, and that 2020 was a year of significant bias in science publications. Looking at the last two decades of studies on masks, there has been generally little benefit demonstrated from mask use and often a mild but significant detrimental effect caused by the hypercapnia and hypoxia masks induce — headaches, lightheadedness, pulmonary stress, and reduced immune function. At this point it appears that we will probably never have a high-quality randomized trial of masks for covid, so we just have to rely on studies that make assumptions. The closest we’ve gotten to a real controlled experimental trial was a study that came out last summer — the Danish study that involved 6000 people, half of whom were masked and half of whom were not. Despite the lead scientist’s stated goal to demonstrate what he believed would be 50% or greater effectiveness from masks, instead he found no significant difference between the two groups in terms of infection.

As for observational studies in 2020, there were certainly some demonstrating a benefit to mask use, particularly in Asian countries, and yet this comprehensive study that looked at the US and compared cases and mask mandates across all 50 states found that mask mandates were actually correlated with more cases of the virus. In most parts of this country mask use has apparently been nearly ubiquitous but simply hasn’t worked. 

Ultimately, the mask question has become so politicized it’s hard to discuss it rationally. Taking a step back, I found this interview with OSHA experts who train doctors on mask use to be instructive and eye-opening about the health tradeoffs: OSHA Mask Whistleblowers

There is an intuitive appeal to covering the mouth and nose when dealing with a virus transmitted through droplets, but it seems to me that the actual situation is that the virus is too small to be effectively screened by fibers, and instead masks end up inhibiting breathing while doing little to screen the virus, thereby making us slightly less healthy overall. There’s also the issue that the virus that is caught on the mask ends up breathed again and again or moves to the fingers for transmission when the fingers touch the mask. That said, I’m not anti-mask and believe there is some benefit when you are actively symptomatic and coughing, to wearing a mask around others (or, better yet, staying home or seeking medical care).

For Children, Good News and Bad

First, the good news. Children should go back to school immediately. I’ve been saying this since last May; it’s why Pamela and I moved to Sonoma to ensure Corin received in-person education. It’s been widely known for months that children are almost universally asymptomatic when contracting sars-cov-2. There’s more evidence now that they don’t transmit the virus either:

• Large Study in North Carolina >
  Only 32 cases of transmission among 100,000 students and staff. 0 cases of transmission from child to adult.
  
• Medium-sized study in Ireland >
  No cases of transmission among 1,024 students and staff. Of 6 cases identified, none transmitted in the school environment.
  

The bad news is a bombshell study out of Germany showing the horrifying effects mask use is having on children, and the release of data on vaccinated children in Oregon effects.

• Large Study in Germany >
  In a study including over 25,000 children from across Germany, parents reported serious health problems related to mandated mask wearing. When considering the fact children so rarely experience symptoms and almost never transmit the virus to adults (see above), some analysts have gone so far as to say forcing masks on children is selfish or even amounts to child abuse. (Personally, we never put a mask on our toddler.)
  

Synopsis: The Best Paths Forward in 2021

In summary, if it’s useful to you, here is where I think we are with this covid catastrophe. My take on the best paths forward with regards to personal health, testing, data, and societal health:

• Best Path for 2021, Personal Health: IMASK+ Protocol
  Given the summary above of available treatments, I think that while it’s certainly your right to pursue the experimental gene therapy if you like being on the cutting edge of science, it must never be required in any instance. At this point I think impartial science shows it to be a flop and potentially toxic in its own right. 
  

As I was researching the treatments and following the work of doctors, including Pierre Kory of the Frontline Covid Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), I came upon his team’s latest work: the IMASK+ Protocol. It’s the best science-backed treatment regimen I’ve seen so far, as it combines the best of both the zinc ionophore discoveries and the ivermectin results and wraps them up with professional dosing recommendations.

They released this handy flyer on January 12: The IMASK+ Protocol >

• Best Path for 2021, Testing: Use an Actual Standard
  The PCR test has massive problems. Its inventor declared it wasn’t suitable to diagnose the presence of an infection. The study that justified its global use itself was never peer reviewed, had massive problems, and should be retracted. The way the PCR test is used today, somewhere between 50-90% of positive results are false positives. And yet, here we are. The media calls it the “gold standard.” It’s been used to justify lockdowns around the world. Here in California, the calculation for the harshest “Purple Zone” restrictions is 7 new cases per 100,000 residents, a level so low that just the false positives on the PCR test put a county in “Purple” if 0.3% or more people get tested in a day.
  
  The most basic problem is that the PCR is in essence a magnification test. The test amplifies a sample until it matches a small snippet of genetic material. At a magnification cycle threshold up to 24x, the test has been shown to correlate reasonably well with predicting symptomatic covid. Above that level, the correlation drops away, and at 32x the correlation is essentially 0. So the standard should be somewhere between 24 and 32 cycles of magnification, but there is no such standard. Every lab and jurisdiction chooses its own standard, and in fact many labs in the US use a 40 or even 45 cycle threshold! This is like finding a few molecules of blue material on a white car and reporting that the car is blue. Even Anthony Fauci has admitted that PCR cycles in the upper 30s are useless. If the PCR test is to be used, there must be a national standard on magnification cycles, preferably at 24x, and no higher than 32x. As it is, if someone were interested in doing so, the test can be “dialed up” or “dialed down” to control the rate of positive results by simply raising or lowering the cycle threshold.
  
• Best Path for 2021, Data: Resume 2019 Death Certificates; Restart Counts on 1/1
  Every year in the United States somewhere around 3 million people die. That’s just life and death here in the USA. Between 0.8-1.0% of us die each year. 2020 will have been no different. Likely it will be closer to 0.9% than 0.8% of the population that will have died. Ten percent of the year’s deaths — at most — will have been due to covid. Cancer and heart disease will once again be the nation’s leading causes of death, and respiratory disease deaths (flu+pneumonia+covid, etc.) will once again be in the top ten. Iatrogenic disease (illness caused by medical malpractice) will again be in the top ten as well. The lockdowns resulted in thousands of excess deaths from suicides and foregone medical care; they will have to be counted separately some day. 
  

The problem with the 400,000+ number used in the media for those who supposedly died from covid is that in 2020 we didn’t distinguish those who died from covid from those who died with covid. According to the CDC, as many as 94% of “covid deaths” had comorbidities like cancer, COPD, diabetes, etc., which were likely the true cause of death in many cases, but all deaths with covid, whether via PCR test or simply “presumed covid,” were counted as covid deaths. If all we do in 2021 is go back to instructing doctors and hospitals to fill out death certificates the way they did before 2020, where the primary cause of death is listed, I think we will see these numbers drop significantly. Certainly, many people did die from covid in 2020, and we must not minimize that; they should remain counted as covid deaths and serve as a reminder to us that this is a deadly virus for a vulnerable subset of the population. But the majority of the deaths were with covid, and they should be shifted to reflect the true cause of death.

We should also begin treating covid like any other cause of death and restart the counting from January 1 each year. This cumulative counting into 2021 is tendentious and alarmist. If we did a cumulative count on, say, cancer, the death count would be in the tens of millions right now.

• Best Path for 2021, Societal: Great Barrington Declaration
  As mentioned above, and as documented in the worldometer statistics, today 99.6% of cases worldwide are asymptomatic or mild. Only 0.4% of cases are serious. The best path forward as a society remains that encapsulated in the Great Barrington Declaration, as I mentioned in my last email. This document has now been signed by over 40,000 scientists and doctors worldwide. The idea of “focused protection” —  devoting care and attention to those truly at risk of death from covid while allowing the rest of human society to function again — is its primary crystalline call to reason. actually serious. So even assuming every single American contracts the virus (which is impossible), why would we destroy the fabric of our society for the needs of 0.4%? Massive suffering is being caused by the lockdowns, which are driven by flawed science and inaccurate PCR testing. We need to focus on the science and protect those truly at risk while restoring people’s freedom.
  

Some responded to the Great Barrington Declaration by declaring it was somehow a Trump or Russian plot or some similar nonsense. The science of public health is neither Republican nor Democrat; it’s about maximizing health and minimizing suffering across a population. There are some legitimate concerns about how to protect older people, but those concerns do not come close to proving that destructive lockdowns are a better strategy than “focused protection.”