Hope for the Healthcare System

Hope for the Healthcare System
by Steven Kritz at Brownstone Institute

Back in April of 2024, I wrote an article posted in Brownstone Journal that detailed the current state of healthcare in America. At that time, I stated that in my opinion, the healthcare system in this country was on life support. I then presented my credentials in healthcare and detailed what I had learned over the course of the pandemic that led me to that conclusion.

Over the ensuing 10 months, my opinion has not changed. However, the confirmation of RFK, Jr. as Secretary of the Dept of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and the expected confirmations of Drs Marty Makary and Jay Bhattacharya as head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), respectively, does give me hope that this ship can be turned around before the entire system collapses. I’ll now add additional details that I had not provided 10 months ago that give me a greater sense of optimism. 

The first person I encountered in any forum who spoke or wrote about the Covid response that made any sense to me was Dr Makary. That occurred in the spring of 2021. While I sensed that he would waffle a bit on occasion, I saw it as his effort, which was largely successful, to continue to be invited on media outlets across the entire political spectrum in order to reach as large an audience as possible. I stand by that assessment. Dr Makary’s communication skills will be of prime importance going forward.

One of the outlets that Dr Makary wrote for was Children’s Health Defense, from which I became aware of RFK, Jr. and his stance regarding certain elements of the Covid response. While I have never agreed with him on anything, including his position on vaccines, going back at least 25 years, I recognized almost immediately that when it came to Covid, he had hit a grand slam home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. I believe I was one of the first persons to express in any forum the belief that RFK, Jr. would be named by Donald Trump to be his DHHS Secretary, and that was back in the late spring or early summer of 2024, at a time when they were openly feuding.

Staying with vaccines for the moment, I had the pleasure of chatting with Toby Rogers, PhD at the reception held the evening before the Brownstone Conference and Gala this past November. I was immediately in his good graces when I informed him that I had recently read his PhD thesis in its entirety. Most of it covers the correlation between the increased number of vaccines and the incidence of autism spectrum disorder. 

However, he also looked at the increased use of prescription medicines, especially in young people, and the increased use of chemicals in the food supply. I told him that I wished he could have devoted as much time to prescription drugs and chemicals as he did to vaccines. Overall, my sense was that he was open to the possibility that these agents needed to be examined with the same rigor as vaccines. As such, Dr Rogers was demonstrating the type of curiosity that all good scientists must possess, which was in sharp contrast to those who directed the Covid response. 

To add an exclamation point to my discussion with Dr Rogers, I just came upon a Commentary in the February 2025 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, entitled, “Environmental Neurotoxins and a Neurodegenerative Outbreak: Diagnosis Requires Specific Sampling Knowledge.” This study focuses on the neurotoxic effects of manganese, and includes possible links to autism spectrum disorder. In sum, this discussion brings Covid shots, vaccines in general, prescription drugs, and chemicals added to the food supply into the spotlight in a way that is desperately needed. Where’s Kamala Harris and her venn diagram when we could use it!?

What about Dr Bhattacharya? I was aware of his work on Covid seropositivity by the late spring of 2020. Those studies showed that the virus was already present in this country in numbers that should have scuttled the ‘2 weeks to flatten the curve’ strategy. I also signed the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) as soon as it was released in the fall of 2020. I recognized that it was a bullet-point summary of the definitive paper on airborne pandemics that had been written by Donald Henderson, MD, MPH back in 2006. I had seen this paper during the summer of 2020, and its contents were described in detail in my prior Brownstone Journal post on this subject. Given the reaction to the GBD by the public health establishment, you’d have thought that it was a bullet-point summary of Mein Kampf!

I had a brief in-person chat with Dr Bhattacharya during the Brownstone Conference and Gala. I introduced myself to him as a physician who had provided primary care in a rural community as a Board Certified Internist, who then went on to do clinical research at a private not-for-profit agency, where, in retirement, I currently chair its Institutional Review Board (IRB). I told him that in the fall of 2021, I saw a study of Medicare patients showing that in those who received the first 2 Covid shots in the winter of 2021 and were then followed for six months. It was calculated that, nationwide, ~12,000 lives were saved and ~30,000 hospitalizations were avoided compared to Medicare patients not receiving the shots.

I then told him that over the next 3 years, in every forum, I challenged every participant to cite a study lasting 6 months or longer in any population showing any benefit from the shots. Crickets for 3 years! I also noted that in the Medicare study, I never saw any data extending beyond 6 months. Based on my research experience, and seeing the shenanigans by the people pushing the Covid shots, I told Dr Bhattacharya that it was my suspicion that the study had been carried past 6 months, but any benefit was lost, so the findings were suppressed.

I then said that putting my clinician’s hat on, I could make the case that patients with a life expectancy of ~6 months before the pandemic, who were dying within 2 months when the pandemic hit, may have gotten their 6 months back by taking the initial 2-dose regimen. Dr Bhattacharya agreed with my assessment completely. The way he expressed it was that, at best, the shots may have benefitted those who were at the very end of their lifespan. The conversation ended with him saying that maybe I should be his physician! 

Recently, Dr Fauci stated that the 6-foot social distancing recommendations were plucked out of thin air. Actually, the real story is even more absurd and embarrassing. Early in the pandemic, a study was often cited justifying the 6-foot rule. The study was published in 2006 by a government IT geek whose middle school daughter had done a school project to determine the social distancing needed to prevent a community outbreak of cooties (you can’t make this sh*t up)!

I had brought this paper up in various forums going back at least as far back as April of 2022 in order to demonstrate how ridiculous this practice was. In fact, the 6-foot rule became the butt of jokes when it was revealed that Neil Ferguson, who created the phony computer models that exaggerated the lethality of the Covid virus, was having an affair with a colleague’s wife. This indicated that either he knew that the 6-foot rule was a fraud or he was so well-endowed that he could have the affair, while still maintaining the required 6-foot separation!

Finally, there have been a number of mentions of the Nuremberg Code over the past few months. I believe that I was the first Brownstone writer to mention the Nuremberg Code, in an article posted in October 2023. Actually, I had brought this up in various forums going back to early 2022. Of course, I was ridiculed for invoking anything that could relate the Covid response in any way to the Holocaust, but here we are!

The point of the foregoing is to indicate that we are potentially on the verge of blowing the lid off the entire Covid fraud and disaster. I believe that we’re about to have the people in place who have experienced and survived the censorship, know what questions to ask, know what they’re doing when it comes to conducting research, and know how to find and disseminate answers.

Here are a few things we should be able to answer definitively, and disseminate widely, in fairly short order:

• What’s the true relationship, if any, between autism spectrum disorder and the use of vaccines, prescription drugs, and/or chemical additives? While this controversy has gone on for years; a coordinated effort has never been made. It needs to happen!
• Other than possibly in persons who were near the end of their lifespan, were the Covid shots effective in any population over a timespan of more than 6 months? I believe the data is already in hand to answer this question.
• Are the Covid shots responsible for the apparent increase in sudden cardiac deaths in prime athletes since the beginning of 2021, when the shots became available? Once again, I believe the data is already in hand.
• There are a number of studies on Long Covid that control for a number of variables, with the curious (and probably deliberate) exception of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Are true cases of Long Covid more commonly caused by viral illness, Covid shots, or viral illness in those who have received the Covid shot? To repeat, the data is likely already available.
• Who are the perpetrators of the fraud?

While the answers to the Covid-related questions (bullets 2-5) are known with near certainty by readers of Brownstone Journal, and other self-described Covid dissidents, it is my contention that at this late date, at least 75% of the public (including healthcare professionals) still believe that the Covid response represented the best that could be done with the information available at the time of implementation. This last sentence is a testament to the ferocity and effectiveness with which the government was able to control the public’s collective minds. It must never happen again!

Hope for the Healthcare System
by Steven Kritz at Brownstone Institute – Daily Economics, Policy, Public Health, Society