We need to learn the lessons of America’s COVID-19 response now, before it is too late—and time may soon be up. A new strain of H5N1, bird flu, has made the jump into humans. COVID-19 continues to infect—each new case is a roll of the dice. The clock is ticking.
Recently, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus heard shocking testimony from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the nation’s pandemic response, about the origins of the pandemic. Fauci and others have admitted they used burner phones, dummy email accounts, and deleted records to cover their tracks. When Fauci and his colleagues claimed the virus couldn’t have come from a Chinese lab funded by his agency, they were lying.
However, the failures of Fauci and other public health leaders in managing the disease were much worse. These failures cost countless lives and trillions of dollars, closed schools, separated families, and tanked our economy. These are the lessons we must learn to avoid repeating their mistakes.
Censorship: Free speech is a cornerstone of American democracy. However, during the pandemic, officials—from Fauci to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—silenced competing voices. The Government targeted doctors pursuing alternative treatments; pressured tech companies into censoring differing views on social media; and, sued companies trying to inform Americans about other protective measures. (Full disclosure, my company, Xlear, is still fighting an FTC suit claiming we made false claims—despite numerous studies supporting our position.)
Scientific Irony: Even as the Government censored other voices, much of its own guidance was wrong. Public health officials recommended six feet of social distancing, but Fauci has testified these guidelines had no scientific basis—they “sort of just appeared.” The Government promoted washing our groceries—as if that would stop a respiratory virus. The Government is suing Xlear for lacking adequate randomized clinical data—yet it approved and mandated experimental bivalent vaccines based on a study done on just eight mice. The FTC should be suing our public health leaders for false and misleading claims.
Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex: The Government created a vast pharmaceutical-industrial complex to push vaccines and other drugs as the sole solution. They insisted vaccines would protect you from getting COVID. In July 2022, Dr. Deborah Birx admitted she knew all along that the vaccines wouldn’t prevent infections. (I’m not anti-vaccine, I just prefer vaccines that are proven safe and effective.) They pushed Remdesivir despite tests showing it was ineffective against COVID. The US government spent tens of billions on pharmaceuticals that over-promised and under-delivered.
Closed Minds: Our government rejected (censored) alternative countermeasures even when studies showed they work. Multiple clinical studies have shown that early nasal rinsing with saline can reduce infection risk, lower viral loads, lessen illness duration and severity, and prevent hospitalization. One clinical trial found that using a nasal spray three times a day reduced infection risk by 65 percent over placebo. Yet, the Government still refuses to inform Americans to this day. Bad dental hygiene and obesity are the leading co-morbidities for COVID—yet you never heard Dr. Fauci advise brushing and flossing or getting to the gym.
Why did public health officials have such closed minds and Big-Pharma bias? That is a great question for the House Subcommittee to probe. My suggestion: follow the money and the revolving door.
Had public health officials acted differently, the data suggests much of the worst of the pandemic might have been prevented. Dr John Abramson, lecturer at Harvard Medical School said, “A more balanced, open-minded approach—one that used every tool not just the ones our government favored—could have saved upwards of 600,000 lives. Not to mention the trillions of dollars we taxpayers are now on the hook for,”. It could also have kept our economy, schools, and culture open. COVID’s needless toll is the real failing of officials like Dr. Fauci. How different the world would have been.
We need to ask forward-looking questions now. We need a new approach now. If we listen to officials like Dr. Fauci, who claim they saved the nation (when in fact they failed us), we are setting ourselves up for the next pandemic disaster. We need to change the focus of our public health agencies from pharma centric to hygiene/sanitation centric as quickly as possible.
About Nate:
Nathan Jones has spent more than two decades dedicated to discovering effective ingredients in oral and nasal hygiene, American healthcare reform and the benefits of xylitol. Jones is the Founder and CEO of Xlear Inc., the leading manufacturer of xylitol-based products in North America.