Doctors for Disaster Preparedness

DDP Newsletter – Vol. XXXVI, No. 2

The “silver bullet” of antibiotics seemed to herald the conquest of infectious diseases, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shifted its focus to noninfectious “epidemics” such as cancer and heart diseases. But with the rise of multiply resistant bacteria as well as the ever-present threat of viral diseases, we might soon be living in the post-antibiotic era. We need to review methods from the pre-antibiotic era, which rapidly lost favor after the discovery of penicillin.

In 1892, William Osler wrote that lobar pneumonia “is a self-limited disease and runs its course uninfluenced in any way by medicine. It can be neither aborted, nor cut short by any known means at our disposal.” By 1913, leaders at the Rockefeller Institute initiated equine serum therapy for the treatment of pneumonia. Two decades later, mortality from lobar pneumonia was 25%–40% in patients not receiving serum, but 10%–20% in those who received this therapy. While the treatment was a major advance, it was expensive, time-consuming, needed to be matched to the serotype of the bacteria, and limited by allergic reactions to horse or other serum. Serum therapy was soon eliminated after the introduction of sulfonamides in 1939.

X-irradiation began to emerge as an alternative to the therapeutic monopoly of serum treatments in the 1930s. Edward Calabrese and Gaurav Dhawan (Yale J Biol Med 2013;86:555-570, tinyurl.com/s7ua856) trace its history, beginning with the first report in 1905. Radiotherapy (RT) was broadly accepted early in the 20^th century, with notable successes in the treatment of many inflammatory and infectious diseases such as gas gangrene, carbuncles, sinusitis, arthritis, and inner ear infections.

DDP News – Vol. XXXVI, No. 1

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks for the public have been advocated or required in various places in the world, but the demands to force everybody, even children, to comply in the U.S. have become frenzied as this is being written in early July.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) floated the thought that the epidemic might be over, as all-cause mortality had peaked and returned to normal. But then surges of “cases” were reported in Florida and the border states of California, Arizona, and Texas—along with a surge in testing. A “case” is a person with a positive test, even if apparently well. Governors were criticized for re-opening too soon, and began forcing still-surviving businesses such as gyms to close. And various jurisdictions began to impose mask requirements.

DDP Newsletter – May, 2020, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3

Many people’s lives are dominated these days by concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. Many refuse to go anywhere if not absolutely necessary. Some “quarantine” or disinfect their groceries, and shower and wash their clothing after doing an errand. Are the masks, “social distancing,” and obsessive-compulsive behaviors necessary—or protective?   Evidence for benefit from the drastic measures is nonexistent to thin. There are many unknowns, but some observations can be made:

If there is coronavirus in the vicinity, you have some on you. In an unpublished experiment, a harmless chemical compound resembling material found in viral coats was radioactively tagged and applied near the mouth or on the palm of two “spreaders.” They carried on normal social interactions with several test subjects who were doing library research—talking, looking at papers, etc. The subjects washed their hands frequently. At the end of several hours, all had radioactively tagged material on face, hands, and clothing.

DDP Newsletter November 2019, Vol. XXXV, No. 6

China: Military and Economic Dominance

Celebrating the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule, advanced Chinese weaponry paraded through Tiananmen Square in October 2019. The message to the world is that Beijing has no intention of ceding military leadership to America or any other country.

High-tech innovations, many stolen from the U.S., include stealth combat aerial drones, unmanned underwater vehicles, hypersonic missiles, and the road-mobile DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), with a 7,500-mile range. The Pentagon has identified hypersonic missiles and systems to defend against them as among its highest priorities, writes Larry Bell. Lockheed Martin expects to test flight its first prototype missiles in 2020. China has reportedly completed seven successful tests (tinyurl.com/rjg5a9o). These “unstoppable” missiles  are “igniting a new global arms race,” writes R. Jeffrey Smith (New York Times 6/23/19, https://tinyurl.com/y2nberq2).

The Chinese seek to dominate by other means as well. Under the Obama Administration, China’s state-owned Cosco Shipping Holdings signed a 40-year lease with the City of Long Beach in 2012 for control of America’s second largest and most automated container-handling operation. In 2017, the Trump Administration put a national security hold on Cosco’s acquisition of a former U.S. Navy port facility. As of May 2019, the Communists are no longer in control of the Port of Long Beach (https://tinyurl.com/tpqap9z). Still, China operates six of the world’s ten busiest container ports, and the Chinese government has also funded the construction and operations of 43 ports in 35 countries under its “One Belt and One Road” (OBOR) strategy (https://tinyurl.com/yy7akrb5).

The State of California under Governor Jerry Brown and now Gov. Gavin Newsom is partnering with China on “climate change” research, such as battery storage, despite concerns about intellectual property theft (https://tinyurl.com/r82mzlc).

DDP Newsletter, September 2019, Vol. XXXV, No. 5

Of all the potential mass casualty events that could affect the United States, the most devastating cause is biologic. Biologic agents, unlike radioactive fallout, have a  doubling time, not a half-life. Whether the agent comes from a deliberate biologic warfare attack, or the natural emergence of a novel virus, the results could be devastating.

In 1918, more people died in the first 11 months of the influenza pandemic than in 4 years of the Black Death in the 1300s. Yet despite spending $80 billion on a National Biologic Defense, the U.S. is arguably no better prepared than it was in 1918, state Steven Hatfill, M.D., Robert J. Coullahan, and John J. Walsh, Jr., Ph.D., in their new book Three Seconds until Midnight, available on amazon.com.

Because of air travel, more people packed into dense urban areas, and greater dependence on technological infrastructure and just-in-time inventories, the population may be even more vulnerable now. There could be mass casualties even among uninfected people because of lack of essential services.