The March of the Morons / Guruismus / von Massenwahn bis Führerkultismus > Die Führer
Die Affäre Hirschhausen
Ayumi:
Die Affäre Hirschhausen kocht gerade so schön. Da kommen Emails, die schon im JULI 2022 zirkulierten, mit Hintergrundmaterial.
IM JULI!
Hier ein Ausschnitt:
Warnung im BMJ / Markus Klotz
https://science.orf.at/stories/3214064/
https://lcacommunity.org/
unten: !!!
https://lcacommunity.org/apheresis-%2F-treatments
!!!
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-07-12/long-covid-patients-travelling-abroad-for-expensive-and-unproven-treatments
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/aus-verzweiflung-ueber-symptome-long-covid-betroffene-zahlen-unsummen-fuer-fragwuerdige-blutwaesche-behandlungen/28501136.html
https://mobile.twitter.com/apheresislc/with_replies !!!
==>
https://mobile.twitter.com/ApheresisLC/status/1548241193540075525
==>
https://lcacommunity.org/bmj-corrections
https://mobile.twitter.com/BeateJaegerMD !!!
https://www.heute.at/s/long-covid-patienten-zahlen-tausende-fuer-diese-therapie-100217581
https://www.facebook.com/groups/psaxnoergasiacyprus/posts/1303872453441225/
---------------------------------
https://cy.linkedin.com/company/icsm
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Long Covid Center
Long Covid Center
Hospitals and Health Care
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About us
Treating patients with microserculation issues with H.E.L.P. Apheresis treatments
Industries
Hospitals and Health Care
Company size
2-10 employees
Headquarters
Larnaca
Type
Public Company
Founded
2021
Specialties
Corporate Services, Law & Accounting, Banking, Licensing, Trust Services, Business Consulting, and Financial Consulting
Locations
Primary
47a Eleftherias Avenue
Larnaca , CY
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Employees at Long Covid Center
Click here to view Constantinos Georgiou’s profile
Constantinos Georgiou
Owner and Managing Director of Apheresis Center
Click here to view Andressa Santiago’s profile
Andressa Santiago
Professora de matemática
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Long Covid Center
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Trailer TV Documentary 'The Pandemic of the Untreated' Long Covid, MECFS and H.E.L.P Apheresis
Trailer TV Documentary 'The Pandemic of the Untreated' Long Covid, MECFS and H.E.L.P Apheresis
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Long Covid Center
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Long Covid Treatments: H.E.L.P Apheresis and HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment) - SPIEGEL TV Germany
Long Covid Treatments: H.E.L.P Apheresis and HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment) - SPIEGEL TV Germany
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Long Covid Center
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WDR TV - Successful Long Covid Treatment: H.E.L.P Apheresis (a 16 years old teenagers' testimonial)
WDR TV - Successful Long Covid Treatment: H.E.L.P Apheresis (a 16 years old teenagers' testimonial)
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Long Covid Center
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RTL Spiegel TV - Dr Beate Jaeger H.E.L.P Apheresis for Long Covid
RTL Spiegel TV - Dr Beate Jaeger H.E.L.P Apheresis for Long Covid
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Long Covid Center
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{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfXBQRUgUzQ}
Long Covid Report on H.E.L.P Apheresis - Check-up by Hirschhausen
Long Covid Report on H.E.L.P Apheresis - Check-up by Hirschhausen
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Long Covid Center
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H.E.L.P Apheresis for Long Covid Dr Beate Jaeger
H.E.L.P Apheresis for Long Covid Dr Beate Jaeger
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Long Covid Center
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BBC News - Dr Beate Jaeger and Dr Asad Khan on ‘H.E.L.P Apheresis’ Long Covid treatment
BBC News - Dr Beate Jaeger and Dr Asad Khan on ‘H.E.L.P Apheresis’ Long Covid treatment
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[*/quote*]
The magic word: "medical tourism" ...
https://www.medicaltourism-cyprus.com/httc-hyperbaric-treatment-centre/
[*quote*]
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POSEIDONIA MEDICAL CENTRE, 47a Eleftherias Avenue
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[*/quote*]
Ayumi:
DAS IST ES: https://raegal.com/about-us
https://www.facebook.com/groups/psaxnoergasiacyprus/posts/1303872453441225/
[*quote*]
Pantelis Kyprian shared a link.
March 1 -
The Long Covid Center located and operating in the premises of Poseidonia Healthcare in Aradippou, Larnaca district, as part of the development of its services, is looking for a conscientious and energetic nurse, with or without experience for full or part-time employment.
Required qualifications: It is the availability of a nurse, who should have the following knowledge and skills:
- Integrity of character, responsibility, initiative and cheerfulness.
- A nursing degree and a license from the Cyprus Council of Nursing and Midwifery (Law 214 of 1988) in force
- Good knowledge of Greek and English language.
- Five-day or six-day working hours (Monday to Friday or Monday to Saturday).
-Training is offered.
-Experience in dialysis or dialysis removal or general interest in medical equipment is beneficial but not essential
-Attractive remuneration package.
Interested parties may obtain additional information from CO. Constantine Georgiou
Tel. 99888093 and send their resume to constantinos.georgiou@raegal.com.
Raegal Clinical Centers
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Resumes at elena_mixail@hotmail.com
Inbox for more information.
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I am interested
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[*/quote*]
[*quote*]
Forgot Account?
Pantelis Kyprian shared a link.
March 1 ·
Το Long Covid Center που βρίσκεται και λειτουργεί στις εγκαταστάσεις του Poseidonia Healthcare στην Αραδίππου της επαρχίας Λάρνακας, στο πλαίσιο της ανάπτυξης των υπηρεσιών του, αναζητά ευσυνείδητο και δραστήριο νοσηλευτή, με ή χωρίς εμπειρία για πλήρη ή ημιαπασχόληση.
Απαιτούμενα προσόντα: Είναι η ύπαρξη ενός νοσηλευτή, ο οποίος θα πρέπει να έχει τις ακόλουθες γνώσεις και δεξιότητες:
- Ακεραιότητα χαρακτήρα, υπευθυνότητα, πρωτοβουλία και ευθυκρισία.
- Πτυχίο νοσηλευτικής και άδεια από το Κυπριακό Συμβούλιο Νοσηλευτικής και Μαιευτικής (Νόμος 214 του 1988) σε ισχύ
- Καλή γνώση της ελληνικής και της αγγλικής γλώσσας.
- Πενθήμερη ή εξαήμερη εργασία (Δευτέρα έως Παρασκευή ή Δευτέρα έως Σάββατο).
-Προσφέρεται εκπαίδευση.
-Εμπειρία στην αιμοκάθαρση ή της αφαίρεσης ή γενικότερο ενδιαφέρον για τα ιατρικά μηχανήματα είναι ευεργετική αλλά όχι απαραίτητη
-Ελκυστικό πακέτο αποδοχών.
Οι ενδιαφερόμενοι μπορούν να λάβουν πρόσθετες πληροφορίες από τον CO. Κωνσταντίνος Γεωργίου
Τηλ. 99888093 και να αποστείλουν το βιογραφικό τους σημείωμα στο constantinos.georgiou@raegal.com.
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Τετάρτη 2:30-4:30, 6μμ-8μμ
Πέμπτη 4μμ - 6μμ
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Συν όποια ιδιαίτερα προκύψουν
Βιογραφικά στο elena_mixail@hotmail.com
Inbox για περισσότερες πληροφορίες.
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Κυριακή Παρμακκη Θεοδώρου
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Το εστιατόριο Ιδάλιον στο Δάλι ζητά υπάλληλο, ωράριο 10:00π.μ. - 4:00μ.μ. για πληροφορίες στο 22480082.
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[...]
[*/quote*]
Ayumi:
Ebenfalls im Juli 2022 bekannt:
"Long Covid Apheresis Community"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjw4vVBGVXxgG8AgKzY0Zgw/videos
Das stammt sogar aus dem Februar 2022:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/long-covid-sends-desperate-americans-abroad-for-cures?ref=scroll
[*quote*]
Coronavirus
Desperate Americans Are Going Abroad for Unproven Long COVID Cures
WILD WEST
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
With help mostly still out of reach in the United States, some Americans are taking matters into their own hands—even as misinformation looms.
Morgan Stephens
Published Feb. 14, 2022 3:56AM ET
He used to jog. But after contracting COVID-19 in March 2020, Eli Musser said he became so weak that he lost use of his legs. The 43-year-old former copywriter and musician added that he remained bed-bound, in a wheelchair, or else left to lay in a makeshift hammock in his Queens apartment until April 2021.
Nearly two years later, Musser said, he still has trouble walking. And jogging? A memory.
“Going to the grocery store is my big event for the day,” Musser chuckled in an interview with The Daily Beast in August. “Today, I went, and that’s all I’ll do.”
Since then, he’s deteriorated, he said in January, noting he tends to remain in bed.
“Standing over the stove to make spaghetti,” he told The Daily Beast, uses up all the energy he has per day.
Two months after he got sick, Musser said, he visited an emergency room in Queens when he fell out of bed and didn’t have the strength to pull himself off the floor. This was the first wave of the pandemic. For Musser—and perhaps thousands of Americans at the time—the long-term symptoms from a novel pandemic were undocumented and unknown.
He returned to his home without any answers or treatment. It stayed that way until the summer of 2020. “There I laid like a 92-year-old terminal patient,” he said.
By that fall, he began seeing specialists at a post-COVID clinic, but continued to have difficulty breathing, convulsive episodes, severe back pain, and incessant “buzzing” throughout his body, he said.
We’re seeing around 80 percent of patients come in with brain fog. But there’s not enough labor to meet the demand.
— Dr. Helen Lavretsky
“I was non-functional,” he told The Daily Beast. “When… you find yourself getting worse, you go, ‘If this keeps up, this isn’t going to end well.’”
Musser eventually saw another doctor in New York who mentioned stem-cell treatment—a therapy that isn’t authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat COVID-19 and hasn’t been clinically shown to help with what patients often call “Long COVID.”
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“I took that and ran with it,” he told The Daily Beast.
As the waitlists for post-COVID clinics get longer and the Omicron variant tears through the U.S., medical tourism among those who say their coronavirus symptoms never fully abated has taken on new urgency. But even as long-haulers go their own way, sometimes across the border, in the search for help, the treatments they’re trying haven’t been clinically tested for safety and efficacy—at least according to U.S. standards.
Meanwhile, medical misinformation shared online among long-haulers could be harmful for an already-ailing community.
A Spellbinding ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ for Right Now
NO WAY OUT
Tim Teeman
In 2021, the National Institutes of Health funded about $1.2 billion to research Long COVID in the U.S. over four years. But the rigors of the scientific process can be painstakingly slow, and experts say the deficiencies in the domestic response to Long COVID are clear.
“Early on, we had a lot of funding. Then, as burnout [among health-care workers] increased, the [financial] support disappeared,” Dr. Helen Lavretsky, UCLA professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the psychiatric lead of their post-COVID clinic, told The Daily Beast.
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Before the pandemic, Lavretsky specialized in cognitive impairment in older adults with Alzheimer’s disease. Today, she works with patients of all ages who exhibit cognitive dysfunction after coming down with the virus. Lavretsky said that as of January, the wait at UCLA’s general post-COVID clinic was six to eight weeks.
There was also a six-month wait for cognitive testing in her department, she said.
“We’re seeing around 80 percent of patients come in with brain fog. But there’s not enough labor to meet the demand, and when we do get funding for more labor, there’s not enough infrastructure,” she said, referring to physical space to house patients and do the work.
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in February suggested that roughly 10 percent of those who contracted COVID-19 went on to develop some subsequent symptoms, including what might be described as Long COVID. A study published in JAMA a year earlier pegged the percentage of COVID-19 patients who had lingering symptoms closer to 30 percent. The latter was conducted before vaccines were widely available, suggesting millions of patients in the U.S. may be suffering from post-viral symptoms tied to early variants of the virus.
These numbers exclude those who never got tested in the first wave—and may also be missing those who could go on to develop Long COVID from the Omicron surge. But there’s still little targeted treatment offered to Long COVID patients, even two years into the pandemic.
Emory University pulmonologist Dr. Alex Truong started the post-COVID clinic there in the fall of 2020. According to Truong, the mood among patients tends to be equal parts gratitude for a hearing, and anxiety at the prospect of suffering indefinitely.
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People are willing to try almost anything if it might give them relief.
— Eli Musser
“Which organ systems are affected must be determined before making any treatment decisions,” Truong told The Daily Beast.
This takes testing, gathering data, approval of research publication, FDA authorization, and, finally, insurance companies deciding if they’ll cover broader protocols.
“They’re usually very net savvy and often ask about fringe interventions that haven’t been shown to help,” Truong said of Long COVID patients he’s seen. “Unfortunately, there seems to be many clinics and websites out there promising cures and relief, and for those who’ve been suffering for so long, that’s very enticing.”
Musser’s online search led him to BioXcellerator, a stem-cell research company headquartered in Phoenix that also operates in Colombia.
“The more I looked into stem-cell therapy, without understanding what was wrong with me, my homework showed me that, best case scenario, there’d be some therapeutic effect,” Musser said.
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But the science is very much still out on using stem cells to treat lingering coronavirus symptoms.
“Some people think, how could it not help individuals with COVID or Long COVID?” Dr. Leigh Turner, a professor of public health at University of California Irvine who holds an appointment at the UCI stem cell center, told The Daily Beast. “I don’t feel as optimistic. There’s a plausible biological hypothesis there, but you know, it’s the difference between acknowledging that point and actually coming up with something that's really effective in individuals in ICUs, for example, with serious lung damage or [who] have Long COVID.”
In fact, the FDA states that, due to limited data on safety and efficacy, some forms of stem-cell therapy taken without approved use can be “potentially harmful.”
Hope Biosciences CEO and Founder Donna Chang is studying stem cells on Long COVID patients in Houston through a randomized clinical trial. Eighty people will receive stem cells or a placebo to measure how effective and safe they are for long-haulers.
When asked if stem cells are more beneficial or detrimental to Long COVID patients, however, she said “it depends on the quality and what you’re getting.”
Chang added that any stem-cell therapy for Long COVID patients could backfire due to the group’s vulnerable immune systems, which, she said, could open them up to other viral infections.
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The risk goes beyond health.
“I don’t just see it as physical harm, but also financial harm, because… there’s no guarantee of getting what they’re telling you,” she told The Daily Beast.
When asked if stem-cell therapy was potentially dangerous for Long COVID patients, BioXcellerator Chief Strategy Officer Matt Marks told The Daily Beast, “We disagree. And for the most part, the scientific community worldwide concurs.”
Musser understood that the treatment in Colombia was expensive and risky, but he was desperate and wasn’t getting answers in New York. So he and his fiancé created a GoFundMe and saved up for the rest. In total, they paid about $35,000 for treatment and travel, raising $12,465 and spending their own $23,000.
“How much is it worth to get your life back?” was all that was running through his head when weighing the decision of the treatment with his fiancé, he said.
BioXcellerator’s Marks confirmed to The Daily Beast Musser was treated for Long COVID in November 2020. He claimed Musser was the first and only Long COVID patient to receive Wharton’s Jelly stem cell, a part of mesenchymal stem cell therapy derived from human umbilical cords, at the clinic. In an email obtained by The Daily Beast, a BioXcellerator employee provided a $33,182 receipt to Musser on Oct. 13, 2020, and instructions on how to prepare for treatment. Documentation shows that the treatment was performed Nov. 13, 2020.
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Marks added that the company has since stopped treating Long COVID patients, citing the need for more research and the desire to treat patients in the United States under FDA regulations.
In an email, BioxCellerator CEO Eric Stoffers wrote, “Based on existing research in the U.S. and around the world, stem cells may safely help patients with ‘Long COVID’ recover more quickly because stem cells can modulate a patient’s immune system, reduce systemic inflammation, and modulate the excess release of cytokines.”
The latter are the proteins that play a vital role in immune response, regulating inflammation and infection. Researchers have long worked to understand the COVID-19 phenomenon of a “cytokine storm,” when high levels of cytokines lead to a “dysregulated inflammatory response.” In essence, the immune system overreacts to infection, and does more harm than good.
Stoffers acknowledged “more research is needed before making any definitive conclusion.”
Musser arrived in Colombia in a wheelchair and stayed that way throughout the trip. It was both physically and emotionally taxing. “I couldn’t make it from the hotel to the medical tower—a 10-minute walk,” he said.
He received five treatments over five days in November 2020, he recalled. It didn’t bring him back to health, but he didn’t see it as wasted effort—at least at first.
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“I’m still within that window,” he said in August, citing the fact that he understood it could take up to a year for him to realize the full therapeutic benefit.
When reached again in January, Musser said his health had worsened—he did not attribute that decline to the stem-cell treatment—and sent a photo of another positive result for COVID-19.
Unproven treatments and attendant misinformation have been hallmarks of the coronavirus pandemic, highlighted by potentially dangerous right-wing favorites like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. The latter has been especially prominent in recent months, embraced by popular figures like podcast host Joe Rogan. This even as the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported that ivermectin-related overdose calls spiked last year when the alleged treatment gained traction on the right, with some Americans seeking out the “horse paste” version, as opposed to the one prescribed to humans. (Neither has been shown to effectively or safely treat COVID-19.)
In some cases, the same voices that have promoted experimental treatments for Long COVID that may hold legitimate promise are also flogging more suspect alternatives.
One option in the more promising camp is called HELP apheresis, a blood-filtering process similar to dialysis.
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A website for a Long COVID group started by Markus Klotz, a 43-year-old Austrian man who described himself as a one-time “volunteer” and former patient of German Dr. Beate Jaeger, has promoted HELP apheresis. Apheresis is a specialty of Jaeger, an internist and head of the Lipid Center North Rhine in Mulheim, Germany. The treatment has been previously used to treat diseases besides COVID-19 in Germany; Jaeger has personally published research on apheresis’ effects on lowering cholesterol and as a treatment for those with coronary heart disease. A study published in Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis suggested HELP might be effective at improving “cardiac perfusion,” or blood flow, and repairing damaged blood vessels.
I still live with symptoms including severe vertigo as if I’m rocking on a boat, daily headaches, and weekly migraines, fatigue, and muscle pain.
In January, Klotz told The Daily Beast he was no longer working with the Long COVID group, which has presented itself as a sort of patient database for long-haulers, and made some enticing claims on its website along the way.
“Millions of Long Covid sufferers can now be cured,” the site stated in August.
After The Daily Beast first asked Klotz for comment on studies or other details showing HELP apheresis might be a “cure” for Long COVID last year, the website changed one description from “cured” to “helped,” and, more recently, to “successfully treated.”
Yet as of January, it retained this statement: “The first patient was fully cured in February 2021, Dr. Jaeger went public with the announcement of a successful cure in July 2021.”
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Jaeger has denied any association with the site and denied working professionally with Klotz. She has also explicitly said her treatment is not a cure for Long COVID.
That said, Jaeger has touted HELP apheresis as a potential treatment for long-haulers, even as it remains unproven. In an interview, she said that she’s been treating Long COVID patients with it since Feb. 2021.
I was among them.
I had a mild COVID-19 infection back in November 2020, but my symptoms lingered. For four months, I lived with severe neurological symptoms that left me cognitively impaired, with constant vertigo that made me feel like I was untethered, floating in space. I was unable to communicate or problem solve. I had severe agitation and restlessness, insomnia, and depression. All of these symptoms are what my neurologist today views as mimicking a traumatic brain injury or “post-concussive syndrome.”
I still live with symptoms including severe vertigo as if I’m rocking on a boat, daily headaches, and weekly migraines, fatigue, and muscle pain.
When I went to Germany to report on Long COVID, I became a participant in research led by Dr. Jaeger and others. The study looked at the blood of long-haulers through a convalescent microscope before and after apheresis to see if they could find any biomarkers for the disease, and to see if the treatment was helpful in removing clots and other dysfunctions in the blood.
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However, after one apheresis treatment, I didn’t experience any changes to my health one way or the other.
Klotz has painted a far rosier picture. He has recently described himself as technical and managing director of a new HELP apheresis clinic being set up in Cyprus, a project—like the website—with which Jaeger has denied any affiliation.
“We work on getting insurances on board,” Klotz told The Daily Beast in February, referring to treating potential patients with HELP in Cyprus once the clinic is set up. “So, usually if a patient has private insurance, he pays the invoice and then sends it for reimbursement.”
However, the FDA hasn’t issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for this potential treatment, raising the prospect that Americans who seek it out will be forced to pay out of pocket.
Professor of Medicine at the University of Kansas and Director of the Lipid-Apheresis Center Dr. Patrick Moriarty told The Daily Beast that Jaeger’s work looks promising. But more research like randomized clinical trials are needed—like the one he’s trying to start in the U.S., he said.
“I'm a scientist. I do a lot of clinical trials and you gotta prove it to people,” Moriarty said. In his opinion, “Dr. Jaeger’s work is not the most tightly drawn-up clinical trial, but it’s of clinical value. I’m sure you’re going to need more to get people to believe it. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”
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Even if Klotz has moved on from the website advertising HELP apheresis at Dr. Jaeger’s clinic, he has a history of spreading unproven treatment information. On Jan. 8, 2022, he posted what he described as a medication regimen for long-haulers on Twitter. After a user asked if he would share his own treatment, Klotz responded by detailing specific dosages, including one for ivermectin.
Klotz also previously shared a variety of purported medical guidance on his Twitter account, including a document dubiously suggesting that “the majority of Long COVID specialists advises against too early vaccinations, or to choose a low on side effects vaccine, a traditional protein-based or inactivated vaccine.”
Hotez, a virologist and misinformation expert who has developed his own COVID vaccine with colleagues, disputed this, writing in an email to The Daily Beast that, without scientific evidence, advising against “too early vaccination” for long-haulers amounted to misinformation.
“There’s now actually a small but growing body of literature on how COVID vaccinations can sometimes prevent Long COVID,” Hotez, who is also a Daily Beast contributor, wrote in an email. “Also, some say COVID vaccinations are even therapeutic for Long COVID, [though] it’s still mostly anecdotal.”
When pressed on whether he had flogged misinformation, Klotz said that was false. He was vaccinated, he added, arguing that he was neither an anti-vaxxer nor a conspiracy theorist. “I always commented on my own experience only… I don’t take sides in any of those Twitter fights, I am only interested in helping people,” he said. In a separate email, he said, “It is my personal views and my personal experience solely. If I mentioned something, linked or discussed it, it does not mean I endorse it.”
In the United States, federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have long cracked down on companies and individuals they say have made false claims about treating COVID-19. Way back in June 2020, BioXcellerator, the company that treated Musser, was one of 160 marketers the FTC wrote with a warning to stop “unsubstantiated claims for coronavirus treatment” on its website and Facebook page.
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In a company post at the time, Stoffers responded, “If the FTC had done any investigation at all, they would have found that BioXcellerator has plenty of competent and reliable scientific evidence to support the content we published.” He added: “There are plenty of shady organizations out there making all sorts of product claims that can’t be substantiated at all. But we’re not one of those organizations.”
Musser said he wasn’t aware the clinic had received these warnings when he got his treatment.
The FDA has provided resources to inform consumers of the potential risks associated with unapproved stem cell treatment and products marketed as “regenerative medicine,” as well as some clinics “marketing or distributing their unproven products to treat complications related to COVID-19—claims that are not based on adequate clinical data.”
FDA approval for a new drug is rigorous and expensive, averaging 10 years and $2.6 billion from formulation to market, according to pre-pandemic studies from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and Duke University. These processes are necessary to ensure the safety and efficacy of a drug.
But time is something some long-haulers, like Anne McCloskey, 55, equate to no answers and prolonged illness. So she sought help from Jaeger, and said she’s been receiving HELP apheresis treatment in Germany off and on since August.
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“I was told before I left for Germany that my insurance was going to be reassessed and possibly charged more because of my frequent usage for care,” McCloskey said.
She has been “trying everything” since she developed Long COVID, she added. Since March 2020, she said, she’s seen more than 20 U.S. doctors in the pacific Northwest to address severe neurological, respiratory, and cardiac symptoms.
“I still don’t know if I'm going to make it," she said in early August, on the eve of her first 12-hour flight to Mulheim. “I’m not trending in the right direction. I give myself 10 years, give or take, and the clock is running out.” Since contracting the virus in March 2020, her labs show elevated cytokines and markers for Lupus and autoimmune-related results that suggest her body is “attacking itself,” McCloskey explained.
Reached in February, McCloskey said her symptoms had improved. “Before I left for Germany I was bedridden and just watched shows and talked on Zoom all day… I definitely had an improvement in function,” she said, noting she was still experiencing ongoing neurological problems like memory loss and constant vertigo.
A lot of that stuff was floating around online, it would get into the forums.
— Keith, long-hauler in the Southwest U.S.
Tales of relief like that one, whether through stem cells, apheresis, or other medication protocols, have filtered through support-group message boards and social media. One of them reached Keith, an attorney and long-hauler in the Southwest who was so desperate to feel normal again that he decided to abandon the U.S. medical system and seek reprieve in Mexico.
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Like Musser and McCloskey, Keith—who spoke under the condition his last name be withheld, fearing he might lose his law license—has taken treatment into his own hands. He said he spent the last year and a half crossing the border into Mexico to obtain medication for what he described as neurological, vascular, and psychiatric post-COVID symptoms.
Although what he is doing is legal, Keith said, he worries that telling the public about his trips to Mexico might damage his reputation.
“I do what I have to do. When you’re sick, you need action,” he told The Daily Beast. “I have a number of years I’m willing to stick this out. I can’t wait for the FDA.”
After contracting COVID-19 in March 2020, Keith said, he initially could only focus in 10-minute bursts, and then would have to stop working. He’s slowly improved cognitively, but isn’t back to his pre-COVID health.
For months, Keith’s Long COVID neuropsychiatric symptoms spiraled him into “all day, 24/7” suicidal ideation, he said, describing his situation as “life or death.”
That’s when he started crossing the border every three weeks to stock up on a cocktail of anti-virals, anti-parasitics, and other medications, he said. Since spring of 2021, Keith added, he has slowly improved, but is not back to his pre-COVID-19 baseline.
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“The trips to Mexico didn’t cure me,” he told The Daily Beast.
Keith said the protocol he tried was touted by the group Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCCA), an outfit described as “fringe” by Scientific American that has plugged ivermectin, which, again, is an unproven and controversial purported treatment for COVID-19.
The operation has not exactly shied away from right-wing politics in general. Doctors from FLCCCA marched against vaccine mandates in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 23, citing them as “draconian,” according to the group’s website. The next day, FLCCCA participated in a round-table discussion on Capitol Hill against vaccine mandates led by far-right Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.
“Right now I’m not aware of any group that promotes ivermectin aggressively as being considered reliable,” said Hotez.
But after visiting numerous doctors, Keith said, he decided to participate in research led by Dr. Bruce Patterson, a pathologist studying Long COVID patients. Patterson is one of four doctors listed as having collaborated on “I-RECOVER” with FLCCCA, a Long COVID treatment protocol made available online. Medications on it have included ivermectin. Long-haulers have shared that information widely on support groups and on social media.
“A lot of that stuff was floating around online, it would get into the forums,” said Keith, noting that Patterson never acted as a prescribing doctor. “I spent 10 hours a day online finding treatment from the FLCCCA protocol.”
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FLCCCA did not respond to multiple requests for comment by The Daily Beast.
In a phone conversation in January, Patterson said he was not associated with FLCCCA. He also said he was no longer suggesting ivermectin due to it not being effective. Patterson added that he and his team were starting a randomized trial for a new treatment with controls that will be announced in the spring.
When asked about Keith’s trips to Mexico, Patterson advised against such a practice, calling it “highly irregular and not based on any recommendations from IncellDx,” the diagnostics company he conducts his business through.
Neither patients nor experts know what long-term effects COVID-19 may have on the body and brain five, 10, 15 years down the road. Due to the sheer numbers of cases, the individual and public health consequences and economic fallout from mass disability is potentially vast.
Experimental therapies are a financial gamble, too. Long-haulers are often burdened with unemployment, mounting medical debt, and a lengthy application process for disability insurance. And they may not have the ability to travel, leaving the phenomenon open for those of higher socioeconomic status.
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Or, like Musser, some may consider starting a donation pool to receive the treatments—or sign up for clinical trials. After he returned from Colombia, Musser participated in a trial where he received monoclonal antibody therapy.
“It’s the Wild West,” he said. “People are willing to try almost anything if it might give them relief.”
If there’s a chance at a reprieve from years of symptoms, “first-wavers” are willing to throw darts at the wall until something sticks. As with all risks, there’s a potential payoff: relief. There’s also a potential loss: making their fragile health condition worse.
They tend to agree that the potential benefits outweigh any bad outcome.
But when asked about potential risks of American patients who participate in medical tourism, an FDA spokesperson told The Daily Beast that bad outcomes often stay under the radar. “It’s very likely that adverse events are underreported by the health care providers who treat patients with these products, and by patients who may have been harmed.”
Today, 23 months after getting COVID, the hammock Musser spent months lying in has been taken down. But in January, he warned that he couldn’t speak for long periods of time because it was too exhausting. His voice was weak and crackled with labored breathing. He told The Daily Beast that a few days after testing positive again, his Long COVID symptoms like muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, blurred vision, vertigo, and insomnia had reemerged.
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Lately, Musser said, he felt hopeless.
“I don’t know if the stem cell treatment was detrimental to my health,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever know.”
But that hasn’t entirely swayed him toward waiting for the U.S. regulatory process to play out. When asked if he was willing to try more experimental treatments, Musser said he wasn’t sure, but leaned toward yes, depending “on the treatment” and “if I can help push the science forward, because I owe it to myself and the Long COVID community.”
Musser added that when he returns to full health, he plans to burn the hammock he laid in during those early months. It’ll be a sort of ceremony marking the end of a hellish chapter—or so he hopes.
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
[*/quote*]
Ayumi:
Hier wird es brandheiß:
"15.000 Euro Abzocke? Ärzte machen fragwürdige Geschäfte mit der Apherese bei Long-COVID – wird die Notlage von Patienten ausgenutzt?"
Das ist die Überschrift eines Artikels bei Medwatch.de. 8)
Und wann? Am 15. Juli 2022!
https://deutsch.medscape.com/artikelansicht/4911382?src=mkm_demkt_220720_mscmrk_decoronavirus_nl&uac=191782AR&impID=4437976&faf=1
[*quote*]
Nachrichten & Meinung Fortbildung
Nachrichten & Meinung > Medscape Nachrichten
15.000 Euro Abzocke? Ärzte machen fragwürdige Geschäfte mit der Apherese bei Long-COVID – wird die Notlage von Patienten ausgenutzt?
Michael van den Heuvel
Interessenkonflikte
15. Juli 2022
1
5
Ärzte sind besorgt, dass verzweifelte Long-COVID-Patienten große Summen für invasive Therapien ohne Evidenz ausgeben. Tausende Menschen würden zur Behandlung sogar in andere Länder reisen, schreiben das BMJ und ITV News. In Zypern, in Deutschland und in der Schweiz erhalten sie eine therapeutische Apherese und eine gerinnungshemmende Therapie.
15.000 Euro pro Behandlung
Der Report fasst Erfahrungen von Personen, welche die Behandlung erhalten haben, zusammen. Unter ihnen ist Gitte Boumeester, eine angehende Psychiaterin aus den Niederlanden. Bei ihr traten nach der Infektion mit SARS-CoV-2 schwere, langanhaltende Hustenanfälle auf. Boumeester konnte nicht mehr arbeiten. Sie erfuhr in einer Facebook-Gruppe für Long-COVID-Patienten von der Apherese.
Boumeester wurde im Long COVID Center auf Zypern behandelt – für mehr als 15.000 Euro. Die Patientin erhielt 6 Apheresen, 9 Anwendungen mit hyperbarem Sauerstoff und 1 Vitamin-Infusion. Ihre Beschwerden verbesserten sich dadurch aber nicht.
Im Long COVID Center rieten ihr Experten außerdem, Hydroxychloroquin als Therapie zu erwerben, falls sie sich erneut mit dem Virus infizieren sollte. Eine im März 2021 veröffentlichte Cochrane Review kam jedoch zu dem Fazit, es sei „unwahrscheinlich“, dass das Medikament einen Nutzen habe.
Experimentelle Therapien nur in klinischen Studien
Doch was bringt die Apherese? Shamil Haroon von der Universität Birmingham, er ist an der Studie „Therapies for Long COVID in Non-hospitalised patients (TLC) beteiligt, hat sich mit dem Thema befasst. Er sagt, eine solche experimentelle Behandlung solle nur im Rahmen einer klinischen Studie durchgeführt werden.
„Es ist nicht verwunderlich, dass Menschen, die früher sehr fit waren, jetzt aber geschwächt sind, nicht mehr arbeiten können und nicht mehr in der Lage sind, ihren Lebensunterhalt zu bestreiten, eine andere Behandlung suchen“, sagt er. „Das ist eine völlig vernünftige Reaktion auf eine solche Situation. Aber die Menschen könnten durch die Inanspruchnahme dieser Behandlungen, für die es nur wenige oder gar keine Wirksamkeitsnachweise gibt, möglicherweise bankrott gehen.“
Angebote auch in Deutschland
Im Februar letzten Jahres begann Dr. Beate Jaeger, Ärztin für Innere Medizin, in ihrer Klinik in Mülheim, Long-COVID-Patienten mit Apherese zu behandeln, nachdem sie Berichte gelesen hat, dass COVID-19 Probleme mit der Blutgerinnung verursacht. Wie sie dem BMJ mitteilte, habe sie inzwischen Tausende von Patienten in ihrer Klinik behandelt. Die Erfolgsgeschichten würden sich über sozialen Medien und durch Mund-zu-Mund-Propaganda verbreiten.
Jaeger räumt ein, dass es sich bei der Behandlung um ein experimentelles Verfahren handele, sagte aber, dass Versuche zu lange dauern würden, wenn Patienten krank und verzweifelt seien.
Die Ärztekammer Nordrhein prüft momentan, ob Ärzte durch solche Leistungen gegen ihre Berufsordnung verstoßen. Sie teilte dem BMJ mit, dass sie keine Beschwerden von Patienten oder Organisationen über Jaeger oder ihre Klinik erhalten habe, aber dass in einem solchen Fall eine Untersuchung einleiten werde.
Die Untersuchung ergab, dass die Apherese selbst und die damit verbundenen Reisekosten so teuer sind, dass Patienten auf Websites wie GoFundMe bereits versuchen, Spenden zu bekommen.
Hinweise auf einen Nutzen – aber keine Beweise
Bisherige Forschungsergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Mikro-Verklumpungen im Blutplasma von Menschen mit Long-COVID für die Symptome verantwortlich sein könnten. Experten, die vom BMJ kontaktiert worden sind, sagten jedoch, dass mehr Forschung erforderlich sei, um zu verstehen, wie sich solche „Mikroklumpen“ bildeten und ob sie Symptome verursachen würden.
„Wenn wir die Mechanismen nicht kennen, durch die sich die Mikroklumpen bilden, und wenn wir nicht wissen, ob sie krankheitsverursachend sind oder nicht, erscheint es verfrüht, eine Behandlung zur Beseitigung der Mikroklumpen zu entwickeln, da sowohl die Apherese als auch die Dreifach-Antikoagulation nicht ohne Risiken sind“, so Robert Ariens, Professor für Gefäßbiologie an der University of Leeds School of Medicine. Hinzu komme die fehlende Nachsorge nach der Gabe von Antikoagulanzien.
MEHR
EMA empfiehlt 2. Booster ab 60 jetzt sofort; Krebspille Sabizabulin als Game Changer bei COVID-19?; Pflegeheim-Daten für 4. Impfung
COVID-19-Impfung: Warum Schwangere die 2. Dosis nach der 20. Woche bekommen sollten
Long-COVID-Patienten 105 Tage krankgeschrieben; Einfluss des BMI auf Impfungen; Gefahr durch Indien-Variante?
Alles zu COVID-19 und SARS-CoV-2
[*/quote*]
Ayumi:
Hier ein Artikel der New York Post vom 13. Juli 2022.
Den muß man lesen! Die Bilder und Links sind nur im Original.
LESEN!
https://nypost.com/2022/07/13/patients-have-turned-to-blood-washing-to-treat-long-covid/
[*quote*]
New York Post
Patients have turned to pricey ‘blood washing’ to treat long COVID
By Hannah Sparks
July 13, 2022 6:22pm Updated
The screen of an apheresis machine
Desperate and exhausted long COVID patients have turned to an experimental therapy, apheresis, or "blood washing," to treat the illness. PA Images via Getty Images
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Desperate to have their lives back, long COVID patients are turning to an expensive “last resort” therapy to cure the mysterious illness.
Apheresis, or “blood washing,” is a process in which a component of blood, such as plasma, is separated and then filtered back into your body via giant needles inserted into a vein.
Gitte Boumeester, who found out about “blood washing” through a Facebook support group, spent more than $15,000 to have the treatment, BMJ and ITV News reported, in a joint investigation out Tuesday.
“I thought, what’s the worst thing I’ve got to lose?” the Dutch psychiatrist-in-training told reporters. “Money was the only thing.”
And that she did — once Boumeester concluded, two months after the procedure, that the “blood washing” didn’t work.
The casette of an apheresis machine
Blood passes through the apheresis machine, which filters out plasma and other components, and pumps the “washed” blood back into the patient’s body.
PA Images via Getty Images
The process is typically used in cases where it’s necessary to remove specific components of blood, such as the treatment of blood cancers, plasma and platelet donation or to collect stem cells.
But in Germany, doctors consider it one of the last resorts for the treatment of some lipid disorders, which are marked by abnormal levels of lipids, or fats, in the blood — the effects of which some have theorized are similar to long-term COVID infection.
Boumeester’s battery of tests revealed nothing about her condition, which developed soon after she caught the SARS-CoV-2 virus in November 2020, despite her debilitating exhaustion.
Yet some researchers, namely Dr. Beate Jaeger, have hypothesized that long COVID may be caused by small clots in the blood that get in the way of the flow of oxygen, leading to the telltale extreme fatigue and muscle aches. Thus, “washing” the blood of unnecessary lipids and proteins, in combination with the use of anticoagulants, blood thinners such as clopidogrel, apixaban and heparin, could help clear the capillaries for better blood circulation.
Jaeger, a cardiovascular specialist in Mülheim, Germany, fought to see apheresis used on COVID patients in the ICU and to publish a paper on her approach, attempts of which were denied. Finally, a pair of her patients agreed to undergo the treatment free of charge. Then, 60 more opted-in. She’s since seen “extremely successful” results in thousands of patients, she said.
A bag of plasma hangs above an apheresis machine.
“Blood washing” is expensive. One patient paid $15,000 to have the treatment.
PA Images via Getty Images
In one of her reports, Jaeger claimed that a long COVID patient who used a wheelchair could miraculously walk again following treatment. Another improved their stride from a labored walk to a jog.
Beverley Hunt, medical director of the charity Thrombosis UK, told BMJ, “I am worried these patients have been offered therapies which have not been assessed by modern scientific methods: well-designed clinical trials. In this situation the treatment may or may not benefit them but, worryingly, also has the risk of harm.”
The process of apheresis is safe if properly performed, but there are potentially dire consequences to having overly-thin blood, particularly if hemorrhage occurs.
see also
Upon further evaluation of the long COVID symptoms, the researchers discovered a substantial change in the pattern of neurological and cognitive/emotional problems reported by patients infected during the period between March and December 2020.
Long COVID symptoms may depend on the variant a person contracted
Even under the safest conditions, patients also risk financial ruin. Boumeester traveled some 1,700 air miles to the Long Covid Center in Larnaca, Cyprus. For two months, she rented an apartment on the beach while making weekly appointments for apheresis, and more unproven “add-on” therapies, such as hyperbaric oxygen and intravenous vitamin infusions.
Six rounds of “blood washing” cost her more than $1,600 per session, while additional treatments came with price tags up to about $150, which she did on the recommendation of the clinicians.
“I was a little ambivalent about all the extra treatment, but I promised myself if I was there I would do anything, to just try,” she said.
Experimental treatments are generally permitted throughout Europe as long as there’s clear patient consent, but experts fear that clinics like the Long Covid Center may be overpromising.
“People could potentially go bankrupt accessing these treatments, for which there is limited to no evidence of effectiveness,” said University of Birmingham researcher Shamil Haroon, whose work on the Therapies for Long Covid in Non-hospitalized Patients trial will eventually go on to inform how doctors approach the disease.
Like Boumeester, British businessman Chris Witham, from Bournemouth, traveled across the continent, to Kempten, Germany, for a $7,000 course of apheresis that didn’t work.
“I’d have sold my house and given it away to get better, without a second thought,” he told BMJ and ITV News.
What do you think? Post a comment.
The outlets spoke to just six long COVID patients who said the procedure improved some of their condition, though symptoms lingered.
Their reporting flies in the face of claims made by Austrian entrepreneur and long COVID sufferer Markus Klotz, who founded the clinic in Cyprus and claims it worked for him after having the treatment with Jaegar in Mülheim. “Over 80% of patients report to keep their gains permanently,” read one post on the Facebook page for the Apheresis Association, also led by Klotz.
“I realized before I started that the outcome was uncertain, but everyone at the clinic is so positive that you start to believe it too and get your hopes up,” Boumeester said.
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