If you’ve ever found yourself in a long traffic jam that seems out of place, you’ve probably experienced the “nothing to see here” interaction with local authorities. As you creep along in traffic and inevitably arrive at a disturbing scene that could include a multi-car accident, a single car flipped on the roof, serious damage to nearby buildings or nature, or even a slab of road that has given way without warning, there is almost always a local authority (usually a police officer or highway patrol official) waving you on with a consistent retort of “keep moving…nothing to see here.”

Just as in the above scenario, where drivers would hardly slow down for something that was not worth seeing, we have to pay attention when data is shared and the mainstream media treats it as “nothing to see here.” The rule of thumb is pretty simple; the harder a person or enterprise works to convince you there is nothing to see, the more likely what you will see if you look hard enough is important, critical and possibly disturbing. Let’s review three recent examples of data/news from the health & wellness industry that went largely unreported by the mainstream media, but are definitely worth us seeing.

COVID-19 & Ivermectin

From the moment COVID-19 became recognized as a global pandemic, there was a rush to understand if current pharmaceuticals could either help prevent, or at a minimum help diminish, the symptoms from the pathogen. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin were two drugs that generated an enormous crossfire from different countries and medical viewpoints.

For the uninitiated, Ivermectin is a drug that has been around for over 45 years, is used to treat a range of parasitic conditions, has two primary formats – one for humans and one for animals – and is very cheap and highly available. It showed promise against COVID-19 in early in vitro studies, and was offered widely in India during the pandemic as part of a COVID-19 isolation/care kit. But, there were also skeptics, with concerns about whether Ivermectin had been tested to the length and depth required to measure its effectiveness, so the CDC strongly urged doctors and patients to avoid using the drug. With such a strong urging from the CDC to avoid, we would expect the data behind Ivermectin’s lack of effectiveness to be overwhelming, and the CDC should be only too motivated to share that data with the population to reduce chances of mis-use or overdose.

Stemming from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Judicial Watch has received 254 pages from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services regarding the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Three things stood out from this trove of data:

• Back in February 2021, emails from leading British physician and World Council for Health co-founder Dr. Tess Lawrie to 31(!) FDA officials and several international medical figures strongly recommended Ivermectin be used for COVID -19 prevention and treatment.
• In the emails, Dr. Lawrie included a .pdf titled Draft BIRD Proceedings 25-02-2021 v.1.4.pdf to share the data seen on Ivermectin’s performance. How compelling is the data? We don’t know because the entire .pdf is redacted.
• One of the people on the original 31 email list was then Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, who proceeded to forward the email and attachment to then NIH Director Francis Collins, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, Operation Warp Speed director David Kessler and several other HHS officials. Both her commentary in the email AND the .pdf are entirely redacted.

So, our leaders who lectured us to “follow the science” do not want us to see the data shared and their response to the possibility of Ivermectin being an effective treatment. Based on the cover letter statement that was not redacted, the panel that included Dr. Lawrie emphatically recommended Ivermectin be used in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 which begs two important questions. (1) Did the panel have sound evidence of efficacy in using Ivermectin to treat/prevent COVID-19? If so, why would our medical leadership want to hide or squash the sharing of such important information? (2) If there was not sound evidence, and the FDA, CDC, NIH and other HHS officials were provided sound evidence of Ivermectin’s inability to function, or even cause more damage, why redact the entire study and communication? If the drug was proven to be ineffective, why would these political leaders not want to share the data (follow the science), support their position and prevent the population from seeking a solution that would be at best, ineffective, and at worst, damaging? Move along…nothing to see here…

Artificial Sweetener Sucralose

As obesity, Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and metabolic disease ravage all corners of the globe, food manufacturers are trying to remove sugar from a range of products, using artificial sweeteners in the place of sugar to try and deliver a sweet, desirable taste without the negative effects. Sucralose has become the most popular and widely used artificial sweetener in the U.S. and can be found in everything from juices to milk substitutes to cakes to fitness bars to a huge combination of drinks. While it was originally deemed as safe by the FDA and approved for use in 1998, that may have been premature, especially with the latest testing that suggests Sucralose may be “genotoxic”, or breaks up and interferes with human DNA. At issue is the compound Sucralose-6 Acetate, which is produced in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract after ingesting Sucralose. The testing, done in vitro, suggests a very small amount of Sucralose can create Sucralose-6 Acetate within the body, and that compound causes two critical problems. First, it can cause a condition called “leaky gut,” whereby the intestinal walls are damaged and worn down, increasing gut permeability and causing possible toxins that should be discharged from the body to enter the bloodstream. Second, the gut cells exposed to Sucralose-6 Acetate showed increased activity in genes related to oxidative stress, inflammation and carcinogenicity.

While the in vitro testing is hardly the gold standard, and does not provide direction on the use of Sucralose over time, this is not the first time data has been acquired on Sucralose that raises concerns about its impact on the human body. The report from usrtk.org is a powerful reference of a range of concerns and risks that have been associated with Sucralose over several decades, including testing that suggests Sucralose can be counter-productive in the control of blood sugar and the prevention of T2D. How Sucralose is manufactured is anything but “natural” and there are other artificial sweeteners, such as Monk Fruit & Stevia Leaf Extract, that so far appear to be much better choices. Even better would be consumers looking at real, whole foods with quality ingredients and macro-nutrients, and avoiding artificially sweet foods/beverages all together. But I’m sure we’ll continue to see companies use Sucralose in a range of applications without regard for this potential risk. Move along…nothing to see here.

Type 2 Diabetes in Children

It’s no secret that we have a global epidemic of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). For additional background on how this chronic, metabolic disease is ravaging the world, I invite you to review previous posts here, here and here.

But, for an administration and pharmaceutical industry that seeks to treat every chronic disease with a drug as opposed to dietary and lifestyle change, there is good news. The FDA has recently approved two additional drugs to treat T2D in children ages 10 and up. From the article:

The approvals of empagliflozin (Jardiance) and empagliflozin and metformin hydrochloride (Synjardy) provide a new class of medications for pediatric Type 2 diabetes. They join metformin, which has been approved for children with Type 2 diabetes since 2000.

In a shocking reversal, T2D, once a disease that half a century ago was almost never seen in children, only affected a small portion of the population, and usually was not seen until well into older adulthood, is now being diagnosed in children as young as 10 years old. To combat this scourge, we now have three drugs approved to treat childhood T2D. Obesity & T2D are growing in Europe, in China, and both continue a rampant rise in the U.S. The CDC estimates that by 2060, U.S. T2D cases within people aged 20 years or younger could increase by 700%. As if that isn’t startling enough, almost 20M children/teens, or ~ 20% of the population, are considered obese, a strongly correlated condition to T2D.

Perhaps, instead of seeking medication for children that they’ll need to take for 50+ years, we could actually revise our dietary advice and help kids (and their parents) make better choices early on to enjoy a life of metabolic health? Perhaps a rethink of our 50 years of dietary advice that has proven to be an abject failure should be top priority, using sound data and validation as opposed to long-standing biases that have been proven to be incorrect. Perhaps the combination of a low-carb diet & intermittent fasting, which is being proven again and again as the proper diet, should be the recommended dietary lifestyle? Of course that would require an admission of being wrong and a pivot away from treatment via drugs toward emphasizing better nutritional choices for better metabolic health. By doing so we could dramatically increase the health of all generations, reduce our medical costs by hundreds of billions per year, and encourage a seismic shift toward smart approaches to land management and consumption that favors sound nutrition, low inflammation and high nutrient density for all socio-economic groups. Or, we can ignore the science & trends, follow a failed and disproven nutritional set of guidelines, and keep running toward the cliff while taking our plethora of medications.

Keep moving…nothing to see here.