Proud Boys return to DC with new target
For a second cold January day in as many years, thousands of demonstrators, including throngs of far-right Proud Boys, descended upon Washington, D.C. This time, the right-wing marchers came to protest vaccine mandates, even as America struggles to ward off the third wave of COVID-19.
While the omicron variant continues to rage, about 25,000 protesters gathered Sunday on the National Mall, chanting anti-vaccine slogans, donning pro-Trump memorabilia, and holding up signs that called for violence, according to The Washington Post. Many of their signs displayed messages like "Vaccines are mass kill bio weapons" and "Trump won," echoing Donald Trump's baseless claim of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Nearby, a bus – plastered with pictures Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and Microsoft founder Bill Gates – was parked on the side of the road, with the word "WANTED" above the three figures' heads.
Other demonstrators compared vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany, an increasingly popular trend among conservatives, holding up signs with messages like "I am not a lab rat" and "Stop the vaccine Holocaust."
During a speech held at the rally, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a veteran anti-vaxxer, claimed that vaccine mandates are worse than the policies of Nazi Germany, saying: "Even in Hitler's Germany, you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did."
Other speakers included physician Robert Malone, a prominent purveyor of vaccine misinformation; TV producer Del Bigtree, the CEO of the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network; and members of public employee associations like Medical Freedom and the D.C. Firefighters Bodily Autonomy Affirmation Group.
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Matt Tune, a 48-year-old organizer of the rally, told the Post that he wanted to "change the current narrative…which is basically saying that we're a bunch of weirdos and freaks who don't care about humanity. And that's not true at all."
"The goal is to show a unified front of bringing people together — vaccinated, unvaccinated, Democrats, Republicans, all together in solidarity," Tune added.
The rally also saw attendance from members of the Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist group known for promoting and engaging in violence. Members of the group briefly engaged in a verbal back-and-forth with counter-protesters near the Reflecting Pool, though police reported no arrests or incidents of violence throughout the course of the event.
The rally comes amid the nation's ongoing battle to contain COVID-19. According to The New York Times, approximately 63% of Americans are fully vaccinated – a number that continues to climb slowly despite the rapid onset of the omicron variant in early December. Meanwhile, roughly one in five Americans are completely unvaccinated. Experts have repeatedly advised Americans to get vaccinated not only to protect themselves but to lessen the risk of mutation.
https://www.rawstory.com/proud-boys-ret ... ew-target/
Then we have the newest substitute for Ivermectin.
Instead of just getting vaccinated, anti-vaxxers are drinking iodine antiseptic
First there was hydroxychloroquine, then ivermectin; now, according to multiple reports, some Americans are gargling and/or ingesting the iodine-based liquid Betadine to prevent COVID-19 — instead of getting vaccinated.
Betadine is the brand name for povidone-iodine, an amber-colored liquid typically sold as a 10% solution as an antiseptic for cleaning wounds and skin. A 0.5% solution is sold as a gargle for sore throats, but the manufacturer cautions people not to swallow it. Recently, the manufacturer warned consumers not to consume Betadine to treat COVID-19, or rely on it as a form of treatment.
"Betadine Antiseptic First Aid products have not been approved to treat coronavirus," reads a statement on the manufacturer's website. "Products should only be used to help prevent infection in minor cuts, scrapes and burns. Betadine Antiseptic products have not been demonstrated to be effective for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19 or any other viruses."
Depending on which type of Betadine one ingests, side effects can range from stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, extreme thirst, being unable to urinate to diarrhea, vomiting, and burning a person's gastrointestinal tract.
As mentioned, there isn't sound scientific evidence that Betadine would treat or prevent COVID-19. So how did this trend start?
While a precise timeline is hard to reconstruct, several sources on social media promoted the use of Betadine to treat COVID-19 starting at the end of last year. Specifically, one video of a purported doctor went viral in April 2021; in it, the doctor states that Betadine helps treat and prevent COVID-19.
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Those who are supporting claims that Betadine could be an effective way to treat or prevent COVID-19 often point to a couple of studies suggesting that in in vitro experiments, different antiseptics decrease the viral load of COVID-19. Yet as experts previously interviewed by Salon attest, in vitro studies are often meaningless.
Studies based on in vitro test-tube or cell culture work "raises eyebrows" to a virologist, Dr. Benhur Lee, a Professor of Microbiology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Salon last month in a discussion of an in vitro ivermectin study. As Lee explained, "in vitro" refers to studies that take place in test tubes, petri dishes, or outside of human patients. Lee notes that what happens in vitro might not necessarily translate to the human body.
"I can increase the concentration of sodium chloride (table salt) by 50% to my tissue culture cells and show inhibition of most viruses," Lee said. "But I don't go asking people to eat as much salty food as possible to combat virus infections, much less SARS-CoV-2."
Lee characterized the belief that in vitro studies will translate to an effective treatment "magical thinking."
Like many myths about COVID-19 drugs, the idea that Betadine is a viable treatment grew from shaky scientific evidence and was perpetuated by seemingly authoritative figures on social media.
For example, a 2020 study found Listerine, Iso-Betadine, and Dequonal mouthwashes might decrease the viral load of saliva, thus lowering the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. A more recent study found that Listerine and Chlorhexidine disrupted the Covid virus under in vitro conditions. But no real world evidence or trials in humans suggest that gargling with mouthwash or Betadine could have an effect on COVID-19.
Even if these did kill novel coronaviruses in one's mouth, that wouldn't be enough to halt the virus.
"It's not like your cells get infected and then they secrete a bunch of virus and they're done," virologist Angela Rasmussen told the New York Times. "Infected cells are constantly making more virus. It's a timing issue."
The manufacturer of Listerine is also warning against consumers using the mouthwash as a treatment for COVID-19.
"Although there are recent lab-based reports (in vitro studies) of some LISTERINE® Mouthwashes having activity against enveloped viruses, including coronavirus, the available data is insufficient, and no evidence-based clinical conclusions can be drawn with regards to the anti-viral efficacy of LISTERINE® Antiseptic mouthwash at this time," the company states. "More research is needed to understand whether the use of mouthwashes can impact viral transmission, exposure, viral entry, viral load and ultimately affect meaningful clinical outcomes."
Not only are the manufacturers strongly warning against this — but many doctors and public health experts are, too.
"Potassium iodine, for example, is a form that, if enough is ingested, it can cause some really severe gastrointestinal issues," Scott Schaeffer, managing director of the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information, told the Oklahoman. "Betadine and those type of products are very low in concentration. If a person were to get a pure form of iodine, like the potassium iodine, it could potentially cause pretty significant burns in the mouth, the throat, the esophagus. The last thing you want to do is burn a hole in the stomach or the esophagus."
Luckily Schaeffer told the newspaper that they haven't seen an uptick in calls to internal or external iodine-related calls.
"Four of them were the typical type of thing where a child gets into either an iodine supplement or a Betadine bottle, picks it up and drinks from it," he said. "The other was a person who was gargling with Betadine, but for a sore throat, and didn't mention COVID, so I'm inclined to think that it was not with the intent of treating or preventing COVID."
According to the local news channel WJXT in Jacksonville, Florida, the state's poison control center has only received one call in the last month of a person misusing betadine to treat COVID-19.
https://www.salon.com/2021/09/29/instea ... ntiseptic/
Those that refuse the vaccines should be told their they get to wait for treatment after all the ones vaccinated are treated, also all medical treatments for COVID related to their hospitalization will require payment in advance as their medical insurance doesn't cover acts of stupidity.