Daily Archives: March 6, 2022

Ayn Rand in Our Day – The Bulwark

Posted: March 6, 2022 at 9:40 pm

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the death of a writer who has been worshipped, loathed, and ridiculedand whose legacy, despite all the dismissals by her detractors, still reverberates in the twenty-first century. Ayn Rand, the bestselling novelist, controversial philosopher of Objectivism, and secular guru of reason and individualism, died in New York City on March 6, 1982, at the age of 77. As a refugee from Soviet Russia (born Alissa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum) who vehemently rejected not only communism but the religious and nationalist values of pre-revolutionary Russian culture, Rand may be particularly relevant to the current moment, when the new Russia is rebuilding itself as a hybrid of the USSR and the old empire with its pillars of religion and nationalism.

Rands works, especially her two best-known novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), still continue to be read and to draw new and often passionate fans. Yet mainstream culture has mostly regarded her as a quaint niche interest on the rightan intellectual pin-up girl for the likes of Paul Ryan, the former speaker of the House, and Andy Puzder, Donald Trumps withdrawn nominee for secretary of laboror treated her as a caricature and a punchline. (Think the Ayn Rand School for Tots in a 1992 Simpsons episode, where the Objectivist daycare-center owner bans pacifiers and asserts that a child who reaches for a bottle of milk is being a leech.) Conservative culture mavens have not been much kinder: In 2010, New Criterion editor Roger Kimball wrote that he had never been able to make it through much of either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead because each time he tried, he found himself oscillating between fits of the giggles, at the awful prose, and irritation, at the jejune philosophy.

Is Rand unfairly maligned, as her admirers assert? In some ways, yes. She did not, as is often implied, worship the rich (most of the wealthy characters in her novels are repulsive or ridiculous, or both), nor did she preach that moneymaking is lifes highest goal. (At one point in The Fountainhead, the hero, visionary architect Howard Roark, describes the man whose sole aim is to make money as a variety of the second-hander who lives solely through other people, seeking to impress them with his wealth.) The character in the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing who ditches his pregnant girlfriend and brandishes a dogeared paperback of The Fountainhead to explain that some people count, some people dont does not actually exemplify Randian philosophy.

While Rand praised the virtue of selfishness, what she meant by the word was something very different from the common meaning. One of the points of The Fountainhead is that mediocre architect Peter Keating, the slick opportunist who uses everything from plagiarism to blackmail to advance his career, would be commonly seen as selfish even though a self is precisely whats absent from his pursuit of success, while Roark would be wrongly seen as self-sacrificing when he would rather be broke than sacrifice his integrity. (Donald Trump, who has fancied himself a Fountainhead fan and Roark wannabe, is in fact a perfect Randian baddie: not only a businessman who thrives on government connections, string-pulling and shady deals, but a man whose sense of achievement is derived mainly from bullying others and being loved.)

Rands affirmation of a strong sense of selfhood as the proper foundation of human relationshipsTo say I love you one must first know how to say the I, Roark tells his beloved, Dominique Franconis a worthwhile message for anyone. Likewise, her formulation of reasonpurposeself-esteem as the core principles of the good life in Atlas Shrugged is a powerful distillation of what we often call Enlightenment values. Conversely, her critique of altruism as the foundation of morality led her to some undeniably valid insights: for instance, that altruistic goals can easily become an excuse for bad acts or a vehicle for power-seeking and self-righteous bullying. Rand, who asserted almost a decade before Hannah Arendt that Nazism and communism were not opposites but totalitarian twinsone subordinating the individual to race, the other to class and collectivewas almost certainly on to something when she wrote that the habit of equating self-interest with immorality and self-sacrifice with nobility often left democracys defenders intellectually disarmed against arguments that communism, at least, teaches people to put others first.

Many of Rands admirers have singled out as a particularly important intellectual contribution her defense of the free market as a moral system based on accomplishment and voluntary exchange rather than coercion, as well as her celebration of entrepreneurship as a creative activity rather than mere pursuit of profit. But on this and much else Rand is ill served by her absolutism. She assumes that, absent dirty dealing of one kind or another, individuals rewarded by the market have an absolute moral claim to those rewards as the fruit of their own effortswhich means that not only any redistribution but all involuntary taxation is immoral (Rand believed that necessary government services should ideally be supported via voluntary financing). But this view ignores not only the extent to which an individuals achievement and flourishing is made possible by a vast and intricate civilizational infrastructure, but the role of factors unrelated to personal meritfrom family background to sheer luck. Rand was still right when she wrote that the government is not the owner of the citizens income and, therefore, cannot hold a blank check on that income and that the state should not have power to enlarge the scope of its services at its own arbitrary discretion. But her political philosophy and her followers were often unable to reckon with the messy reality and compromises inherent in a government constituted to respect both the individual and the social contract.

Rands absolutism also undercuts her arguments on a moral level. Ideas she opposes, such as altruism, are relentlessly strawmanned: If you teach people that its praiseworthy to give up something to help others with no thought of your own self-interest, then youre telling them that they have no right to exist for their own sake and no purpose except to be a sacrificial animal. While some accusations of cruelty directed at Rand are based on caricature more than her actual work, its difficult to deny that her version of individualismwhich bears a Nietzschean stamp Rand deniedhas little room for physical afflictions and vulnerabilities. Except for her first major novel, We the Living (more about which in a moment), sick people mostly figure in her work as unworthy recipients of pity, and even private charities are mocked for helping drug addicts and unwed pregnant women.

The way Rands philosophy played out in her own life is a stark example of being mugged by reality. Her following, by the admission of former associates who never stopped admiring her work, became so cultlike that people who spoke of freedom and the independent mind felt compelled to admire the same books and music Rand admired. (Objectivist groups even held show trials of members accused of violating Randian precepts.) While her heroes stoically accepted romantic rejection, Rands reaction to the revelation that her much younger lover and disciple, Nathaniel Branden, was involved with a still-younger woman was to rail against him, curse him with impotence, and denounce him to her flock for unspecified immoral acts. Her belief that cancer and many other illnesses were the result of psycho-epistemological errors led her to conceal her lung cancer diagnosis from her fans (and refuse to retract her previous staunch denial of the hazards of smoking) and to torment her long-suffering husband by trying to reason him out of Alzheimers. Her professed commitment to truth did not prevent her from rewriting her history to proudly declare, No one helped me, even though she repeatedly received help from relatives, friends, and even charities after coming to the United States.

In other words: Dont try this philosophy at home, kids.

But Rand is hardly the first philosopher whose ideas cannot survive a close encounter with reality, or the first writer with eccentric philosophical views. And the truth is that, despite her eccentricities, she was a far better writer than Kimball and others recognizeat least until she went full ideologue in Atlas Shrugged and began to use fiction as a vehicle for heavy-handed agitprop. While Atlas has some powerful passages, its hero John Galt is an abstraction with the looks of a Greek god, its villains are a gallery of grotesques, and its plot is weighed down by endless preaching in which the message is hammered into the readers head again and again and again. That message subsumes anything that could be recognizable as human emotion: When the wife of industrialist Hank Rearden tries to humiliate him by announcing that she slept with a man he despises, he responds by having philosophical musings (as one does) on the creed of collective interdependence, which holds that the moral stature of one is at the mercy of the action of another.

But Rands earlier works, while always wedded to her ideas, are far more readable and humanand leave little doubt that she was a writer of extraordinary if idiosyncratic talent.

We the Living (1936), set in Petrograd/Leningrad in the early to mid-1920s, paints a compelling picture of life in the Soviet Union as the devastation of revolution and civil war gave way to the New Economic Policy, a brief interlude in which private enterprise was grudgingly tolerated along with a fair amount of personal and cultural freedom. At this point, Rand was still flexible enough that she could make some of her commies sympathetic and that her individualistic heroine, Kira Argounova, could have real, tangible bonds with her family despite being its black sheep. Kiras uncle Vassily, a dispossessed businessman who desperately tries to hold on to his dignity and cling to hope under the new regime, is a particularly tragic figure, while her mother Galina, whose haughty scorn for the new ways gradually shifts to acceptance and then enthusiastic conformism, is depicted with fine and subtle satire. Kiras tangled relationship with the idealistic Communist Andrei Taganov and the aristocrat Leo Kovalensky, which ends in Andreis suicide and Leos descent into cynicism and degradation, is a genuinely poignant story with enough unusual twists to make it riveting. And Rand has a knack for the vivid detail, such as the early scene in which a woman traveling on an overcrowded train holes up in the reeking cubicle of the toilet to devour a boiled potato, a rare luxury in a country only starting to climb out of the civil wars wreckage.

The Fountainhead, almost certainly Rands best work, can also be read and appreciated without fully embracing the message. The frequently made claim that Rands characters are black-and-white cardboard cutouts does not apply here: Even the despicable Keating is a nuanced character with some sympathetic moments, including the bittersweet story of his thwarted romance with the young woman he truly loves but gives up for a more advantageous marriage. The Citizen Kane-like newspaper tycoon Gail Wynand, Roarks frenemy and (for a long stretch of the novel) Dominiques husband, is both odious and noble; many other characters such as Dominiques father Guy Francon do not neatly fit the good/bad scheme, and even the (very bad) archvillain Ellsworth Toohey has an acid intelligence, wit, and even Mephistophelean charm that place him in an entirely different league from the thoroughly repulsive baddies of Atlas Shrugged.

Likewise, Rands prose here has little in common with the later novels anvil-heavy propaganda tropes and crass mockery. It can be beautifully evocative (The air was heavy with untimely darkness, disquieting like premature old age, and there were yellow puddles of light in windows) and bitingly funny (Wynands tabloid, the New York Banner, is described as covering society news in a trashy way that gave the man on the street two satisfactions: that of entering illustrious drawing rooms and that of not wiping his feet on the threshold). Reviewing the novel in the New York Timesone of the few favorable mainstream reviews Rands books got in her lifetimepioneering feminist psychologist Lorine Pruette hailed it as the work of a writer of great power with a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly. The praise may sound startling to those used to thinking of Rand as a right-wing pseudo-intellectual hack, but its well deserved. The Fountainhead is rightly considered a twentieth-century American classic.

Rands relationship with American politics was always complicated, to say the least. Her fierce opposition to the New Deal and socialist encroachments on capitalism drew her to the right, but her militant atheism and radical individualism led to irreconcilable differences with the conservative movement. The scathing review of Atlas Shrugged in National Review by Whittaker Chambers, titled Big Sister is Watching You, made the divorce final. (While Chamberss animus focused primarily on the godlessness of Rands vision, some of his chargesfor instance, that Rands utopia is a world ruled by a technocratic eliteare difficult to refute regardless of the question of religion.)

Today, one could see Rands rational individualism as an alternative to the collectivist politics at both ends of the political spectrum: demagogic populism and anti-liberal traditionalism on the right, resurgent socialism and identity politics on the left. Unfortunately, her flaws inevitably get in the way. One need not, for example, be woke to find it shocking that during the years when Rand inveighed against onerous business regulations as an assault on individual rights, she never gave any thought to Jim Crow laws; it took until 1963 for her to write that the policy of the Southern states toward Negroes was and is a shameful contradiction of this countrys basic principles. (At that point, while condemning racism, she also criticized the Civil Rights Act for outlawing discrimination by private businesses and violating property rights.) Rands warning that the smallest minority on earth is the individual and that anti-racism must be founded on individual rights is a potent and relevant messagebut one likely to be undercut by her cavalier attitude toward racism. And her work has other problems that could play to the worst of current American discourse, such as a tendency to demonize people with bad opinions.

Yet it is also true that Rand contains multitudes. Perhaps the best way to approach her work is to get beyond her own black-and-white framework in which there is either total acceptance or wholesale rejection, and to acknowledge the contradictions that she denied she had. Encouragingly, some scholars are now engaging her work in a way that is critical but not dismissive; readers should, too. One can appreciate Rands affirmation of reason, personal autonomy, and achievement while acknowledging that these values need to be complemented by others. One need not accept her romantic individualism wholesale to see that it has a stirring power and a magnetic appeal, especially to young peoplewhich is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as that individualism comes to be balanced by a fuller understanding of lifes complexities. And one need not ignore the ugly side of Rands work to see the beauty in her celebration of life, creativity, and freedom.

I came across an unexpected, and oddly relevant, example of such beauty while looking through Rands 1970 collection of essays, The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. While Rand rarely wrote about specific events in Russia, in early 1969 she was moved to write about the sentencing of five young people who had come out on Red Square on August 25, 1968 to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. (Their protest lasted three minutes before they were arrested.) Commenting on New York Times reporter Henry Kamms observation about the inexplicable personal alchemy that drove these five to such a brave and futile act, Rand wrote:

There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their daysthe conviction that ideas matter. In ones youth that conviction is experienced as a self-evident absolute. . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that ones mind matters. And the radiance of that certainty, in the process of growing up, is the best aspect of youth.

Its consequence is the inability to believe in the power or the triumph of evil. . . . This is the inexplicable personal alchemy that puzzled Henry Kamm: an independent mind dedicated to the supremacy of ideas, i.e., of truth.

Voicing anguish for the physical and spiritual ordeal that awaits the young rebels, Rand finally addresses herself to people of good will, Objectivist or not, who have preserved some sense of humanity, justice and compassion (italics in the original), and pleads with them not to help the Soviet jailers pretend that they are the morally acceptable leaders of a civilized country.

Written about Soviet Russia in 1969, these words still ring true in 2022 for Putins Russia, where courage is not nearly as rare and protest not nearly as futile.

This, too, is the real Ayn Rand.

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Nicolais: Republicans suing to bar unaffiliated voters from Colorado’s primaries aren’t on the fringe of the party – The Colorado Sun

Posted: at 9:39 pm

In 2020, I voted in my first Democratic primary. I am unaffiliated and received ballots for both major parties. The Democratic ballot had more choices and more at stake.

This year, I planned to vote in the Republican primary if only to stand against Tina Peters campaign to kill democracy.

If a group of Republicans who filed a lawsuit last week get their way, I wont have the chance.

The lawsuit would bar unaffiliated voters from participating in the Republican Party primary. It was filed after the Colorado GOP avoided a death spiral by voting against an opt-out proposal last September. During the same meeting a majority did authorize the state party to file a lawsuit, but it had not acted.

Tired of waiting on the party, several Republicans took matters into their own hands.

I have seen several social media posts from GOP insiders claiming that the lawsuit is just a kooky idea, silly, and that the plaintiffs are just a handful of fringy Republicans. They obviously understand that shutting out unaffiliated voters would be a leaden lifejacket drowning Republican candidates up and down the ballot this November.

They also overlook too many inconvenient facts.

The plaintiffs include a sitting state representative running for the U.S. Senate, a candidate for the 7th Congressional District, a two-time GOP nominee for Congress and multiple county party chairs. These are not random crazies who exited militia compounds just long enough to sign their names; they are elected standard-bearers for significant portions of the state.

Even more damning to the fringe argument are the attorneys involved. Randy Corporon is a leading voice on conservative radio in Colorado and, according the GOPs own website, currently an elected Republican National Committee member from the state. He led legal efforts against vaccine mandates and helped lead the opt-out charge last fall.

Corporon could be the prime attraction but for his co-counsel. John Eastman serves as lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

The same Eastman who served as former President Donald Trumps primary legal counselor to challenge electors before the House of Representatives last January.

The same Eastman the leading GOP gubernatorial candidate hailed as fantastic for his stint as a professor at the University of Colorado.

Whatever else Eastman is, he is a central figure in current Republican Party politics. Some within the party may disagree with his legal opinions and political strategies, but it is disingenuous to assert that he is merely a fringe player.

Of course, whether Eastman will be able to see the lawsuit through is another story. As he prepared to file this lawsuit the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot filed its own pleading in California alleging that both Trump and Eastman engaged in multiple criminal activities.

READ:Colorado Sun opinion columnists.

I have read the 221-page filing. Eastmans deposition in particular is as damning as any I have seen outside a full confession. He asserted his Fifth Amendment rights 146 separate times including when asked about statements he made in the media, before tens of thousands of rally attendees and in Supreme Court pleadings.

Eastman even invoked the Fifth when Rep. Jamie Raskin asked if he agreed with Trumps statement that The mob takes the Fifth. If youre innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?

Eastman has every right to refuse to testify against himself, but the questions asked in the deposition demonstrated just how deep the committees evidence against him runs deep enough to submerge the U.S. Capitol.

That in turn, along with other complaints, has also led to a grievance process in California that may well strip him of his license to practice law. That could keep him from completing the case in Colorado.

There is an easy step the Colorado GOP could take to distance itself from Eastman and his plaintiffs. The state party could intervene in this lawsuit and argue against them and with the Secretary of State. They could make the case that Proposition 108, which gave unaffiliated voters the right to vote in party primaries, is a proper exercise of the Tenth Amendment.

I am not going to hold out much hope for that outcome. Unfortunately, the rational actors who might embrace it are on the fringe of the current Colorado Republican Party.

Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on Twitter:@MarioNicolaiEsq

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Suns opinion policy and submit columns, suggest writers or give feedback at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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Nicolais: Republicans suing to bar unaffiliated voters from Colorado's primaries aren't on the fringe of the party - The Colorado Sun

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Roger Stone Recorded Fleeing DC Jan. 6: ‘I Really Want to Get Out of Here’ – Newsweek

Posted: at 9:39 pm

The day before the January 6 Capitol riot, Roger Stone told a crowd of then-President Donald Trump supporters he would stand with them "shoulder to shoulder," but abruptly packed his bags and fled during the next day's insurrection out of fear of prosecution, footage from a coming documentary shows.

The footage was recorded by a Danish documentary film crew for A Storm Foretold, which captures the activities of the longtime Republican political operative over a two-year period. The footage, extensively reviewed by The Washington Post, sheds new light on Stone's actions during the 2020 presidential election and its tumultuous aftermath.

"I really want to get out of here," Stone is recorded telling an aide as he watched news coverage of the January 6 insurrection from his Washington, D.C., hotel, according to footage reviewed by the Post.

Stone, a longtime advisor to Trump, quickly packed his suitcase as the riot unfolded and left the city. He said he was afraid of being prosecuted by the incoming attorney general, Merrick Garland.

"I'm not sure what they thought they were going to achieve," Stone is said in the footage as he packed his bag. "I think it's really bad for the movement."

Following the insurrection, federal prosecutors have brought charges against multiple people in the ransacking of the Capitol. The House Select Committee investigating the incident has recently signaled it has evidence that Trump and his allies illegally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In December, Stone said he pleaded the Fifth Amendment when questioned by the congressional panel.

"I did invoke my Fifth Amendment rights to every question, not because I have done anything wrong but because I am fully aware of the House Democrats' long history of fabricating perjury charges on the basis of comments that are innocuous, immaterial or irrelevant," he told reporters after being questioned.

Stone has denied having anything to do with the insurrection. Last year, he denied involvement with the January 6 riot during an appearance on Newsmax. He recently again denied any role in a statement to the Post.

"Any claim, assertion or implication that I knew about, was involved in or condoned the illegal acts at the Capitol on January 6 is categorically false and there is no witness or document that proves otherwise," Stone said, accusing the newspaper of using guilt by association, insinuations and half-truths.

However, Stone helped organize the protest that attracted thousands of Trump supporters to Washington, D.C., on January 6, according to the Post. Additionally, video shows a member of the far-right Oath Keepers, later charged in the attack on the Capitol, was in Stone's room at the Willard Hotel before the insurrection. Stone also said he "feared that top organizers were trying to exclude him from the rally," reported the Post.

A federal judge last month wrote in an order in a lawsuit filed by Capitol Police and Democrats against Trump over January 6 that Stone's link to far-right groups may be "an important one."

The documentary also captures the fallout after Trump didn't offer pardons requested by Stone.

"See you in prison," Stone wrote that evening in a message to a Trump associate, according to the Post.

Newsweek has reached out to Stone for comment.

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Roger Stone Recorded Fleeing DC Jan. 6: 'I Really Want to Get Out of Here' - Newsweek

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A Crime Thriller That Misinterpreted Its Own Title Slams the Gavel on Netflix – We Got This Covered

Posted: at 9:39 pm

Movie titles arent always supposed to be taken literally, but when the moniker of a particular film also happens to serve as the basis for the entire plot, then maybe an ironclad degree of accuracy would have been expected.

Two-time Academy Award nominee Bruce Beresfords crime thriller Double Jeopardy was never intended to be a hard-hitting drama designed to appeal to critics, which is just as well when it wound up with an unremarkable Rotten Tomatoes score of just 27%, but the box office hit was lambasted for failing to understand its own terminology.

Putting the oversights to one side for a moment, Double Jeopardy has found itself in the midst of an unexpected Netflix renaissance per FlixPatrol, having soared onto the platforms most-watched list by securing Top 10 placings in eight countries this weekend.

Ashley Judds Libby Parsons finds herself imprisoned for the murder of her husband, but after being released on parole, she sets out to unravel the mystery that tore her life apart when she discovers her spouse faked his own death and made her out to be the culprit.

To do this, she operates under the assumption that she can exact revenge by killing him without consequences on the basis of the titular Fifth Amendment clause. Of course, you cant legally go ahead and murder someone with impunity just because you were wrongfully convicted of a crime, which is a pretty glaring flaw in the narrative masterplan.

Not that it really matters, when Double Jeopardy doesnt pretend to be anything other than a glossy Hollywood genre film that relies on a top-notch cast giving solid performances to paper over the cracks in the storytelling. Audiences didnt mind, either, with the movie going on to earn $177 million from theaters on a $70 million budget, even if the legal eagles were left a little dismayed by the premise.

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A Crime Thriller That Misinterpreted Its Own Title Slams the Gavel on Netflix - We Got This Covered

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GET ACTIVE: Community Wellness Day at the Arcade – dayton.com

Posted: at 9:38 pm

ExploreDayton Dangerous Dames to be honored for impact on community

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, complementary and alternative medicine is used by 38 percent of adults and 12 percent of children. This includes traditional and centuries-old practices like acupuncture as well as external energy therapy, mind-based therapy and body therapies, like massage.

Brown is bringing together a variety of wellness practitioners to offer free services for all ages. Chair massages, chakra screenings, Reiki energy work, sound healing and aromatherapy are just a few of the experiences that will be available at the Tank at the Dayton Arcade.

Studies have shown that people heal better if they have good emotional and mental health. Alternative healing practices can enhance both emotional and physical health.

The Community Wellness Day at the Arcade is about community, education, art, wellness and healing - Contributed

Unfamiliar with alternative healing methods? Here are a few that the Love Shack has shared with their community outreach events.

* Aromatherapy: The centuries-old practice of using essential oils for therapeutic benefit. When inhaled, the scent travels to the brain, especially impacting the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain.

* Chakra screening: An analysis of your bodys seven major energy centers known as chakras. These energy centers affect both the physical and emotional aspects of your life. When energy is flowing smoothly through each chakra, the body is in a state of balance.

* Reiki: An energy healing technique that promotes relaxation, reduces stress and anxiety through gentle touch. Reiki practitioners use their hands to deliver energy to your body, improving the flow and balance of your energy to support healing.

* Sound healing: Also known as vibrational medicine, a practice that employs the vibrations of the human voice as well as objects that resonate like tuning forks, gongs and Tibetan singing bowls to stimulate healing.

Beyond the health benefits, the free Community Wellness Day at the Arcade offers another major perk.

Its a really fun environment, Brown said.

Free Community Wellness Day at the Arcade

What: A family-friendly event focused on community, education, art, wellness and healing sponsored by Love Shack: A Traveling Community Outreach Collaborative for Dayton

When: Sunday, March 27 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: The Tank at the Dayton Arcade, 35 W. 4th St., Dayton

More: Free chair massages, chakra screenings, Reiki energy work, body work, sound healing, aromatherapy and art therapy.

Info: Visit the Love Shack: A Traveling Community Outreach Collaborative for Dayton of Facebook

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5 Medicines That are Usually a "Waste of Money" Eat This Not That – Eat This, Not That

Posted: at 9:38 pm

There is a huge amount of money to be made in convincing people to buy "miracle" cures and "ancient" remediesbut just because a highly convincing snake oil-peddler is wearing a white coat does not mean the (often eye-wateringly expensive) snake oil actually works. With so much misinformation, pseudoscience, and quackery out there, how do you know what's worth spending your money on? Here are five so-called medicines that are a complete waste of money. Read onand to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had COVID.

You might need to pull out the lavender oil for this one: There is very little scientific evidence that essential oils can treat any kind of illness or health condition, despite claims to the contrary. "So many people are ill, and are looking for something to help them feel better, it's hard for them to walk away from a simple and natural therapy such as essential oils," says Felice Gersh, an ob/gyn and founder of the Integrative Medicine Group of Irvine, California. But what about all those anecdotal stories from people who say essential oil boosted their libido, or stopped their dog from having an anxiety attack? "Across many conditions, including anxiety, depression, and pain, when people believe something is helpful, they sometimes experience benefit," says Keith Humphreys, a psychiatrist at Stanford Health Care in Stanford, California. "Any claims of healing power beyond the placebo effect should be regarded with extreme skepticism."

RELATED: What Taking Zinc Does For Your Body, Say Experts

The COVID-19 pandemic has opened the floodgates to some truly nonsensical treatments. The bottom line is this: If it wasn't prescribed or recommended by your physician, it's probably useless (if not outright harmful). "Cow urine, bleach and cocaine have all been recommended as COVID-19 cures all guff," says University of Alberta professor Timothy Caulfield. "And countless wellness gurus and alternative-medicine practitioners have pushed unproven potions, pills and practices as ways to 'boost' the immune system. There is some evidence that alternative treatments and placebo effects can relieve distress a common justification for tolerating unproven alternative treatments. But it's inappropriate to deceive people (even for their benefit) with magical thinking, and it is inappropriate for scientists to let such misinformation go unremarked."

RELATED: Here's How to Stop Aging, Say Experts

Guess whatyou can't "boost" your immune system, and trust us, you shouldn't want toan overactive immune system is why so many people suffer from terrible allergies. All you need is a balanced immune system, which has significantly more to do with a healthy lifestyle than it does a magic potion. "The medical profession still doesn't know exactly how to influence the immune system despite what supplement products may claim," says Julie Stefanski, a registered dietitian nutritionist and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics.

"Obviously good and balanced nutrition is important, but I actually do not think there is any strong scientific evidence for any specific type of food being linked to better immune function, and certainly there is no serious work on the area that I am aware of," says Shiv Pillai, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard immunology program.

RELATED: Surprising Reasons You Could Get Cancer, Say Physicians

Are you paying a ridiculous amount of money for pretty pink salt because a wellness influencer told you it was better for you, health-wise, than other salt? That maybe you could "detoxify" your skin with this magical elixir? You might want to stop doing that. "Himalayan salt does contain trace amounts of minerals like potassium, magnesium, iron, and more, but the amounts are insignificant and afford no additional health benefits," says Jeff McGrath, a clinical dietitian at Westchester Medical Center, the university hospital of New York Medical College.

RELATED: Virus Experts Warn This is What May Happen Next

According to a study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, phenylephrine hydrochloride (PE HCl)an ingredient commonly used in over-the-counter treatments for nasal congestionis no better than a sugar pill at effectively treating symptoms of a cold. Why? Thanks to an unfortunate predilection some people showed for concocting meth out of cough medication, the formula was changed, and subsequently made useless. "A lot of these medications used to use pseudoephedrine, a different chemicalit's what's found in Sudafed, for example," says Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, a clinical associate professor at NYU School of Medicine. "Instead, they've been using phenylephrine now in a lot of the over-the-counter decongestants. The problem is, if it doesn't work as well, what's the point of people spending so much money on those medications and then still having the symptoms?" And to protect your life and the lives of others, don't visit any of these 35 Places You're Most Likely to Catch COVID.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

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5 Medicines That are Usually a "Waste of Money" Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

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Is Colloidal Silver Safe and Effective? – Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic

Posted: at 9:38 pm

Colloidal silvers use as a health remedy is a tale as old as time. But modern scientists continue to question its silver bullet status. Thats why internal medicine specialist Melissa Young, MD, says people need to be cautious when deciding to use it.

Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services.Policy

You should not take it internally swallowed as an over-the-counter supplement under any circumstances, says Dr. Young.

So, is colloidal silver safe in any form? Dr. Young talks about colloidal silvers uses, benefits and potential side effects from turning your skin blue to harming your internal organs.

Colloidal silver is a solution of tiny silver particles suspended in a liquid base. And its the same silver as the metal the kind you find on the periodic table of elements or in your jewelry box. But instead of making bracelets and rings, many companies market colloidal silver as an essential dietary supplement or alternative medicine remedy.

Product labels promise the elimination of toxins, poisons and fungi. Even more than getting rid of stuff, manufacturers guarantee colloidal silver will give you an immune system boost. And some people even claim its an effective treatment for cancer, diabetes, HIV and Lyme disease.

Colloidal silvers use as a health remedy goes all the way back to 1500 B.C. China. Ancient civilizations commonly used silver to treat a variety of ailments due to its antimicrobial properties. But once effective antibiotics came on the scene, colloidal silver fell out of favor until recently.

Today, people most commonly use it as a home remedy to treat colds and respiratory infections, says Dr. Young. They either ingest or gargle the liquid or inhale it using a nebulizer (a medical device that turns liquid into a breathable mist).

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that colloidal silver is more snake oil than magic bullet. The FDA has even taken action against companies selling the product as a cure-all.

They came out strongly in 1999 with this statement: Over-the-counter drug products containing colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts for internal or external use are not generally recognized as safe and effective and are misbranded products containing colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts are being marketed for numerous serious disease conditions and FDA is not aware of any substantial scientific evidence that supports the use of over-the-counter colloidal silver or ingredients or silver salts for these disease conditions.

Translation: Colloidal silver is not FDA-approved. There is no proof it can treat any diseases.

Scientists dont fully understand how colloidal silver works in your body. But the key to its reputation as a microbe killer starts with the mixture itself. When silver encounters moisture, that moisture sets off a chain reaction, which ends with the silver particles releasing silver ions. Scientists believe the silver ions then destroy bacteria by damaging proteins on their cell membranes, or outer walls.

Cell membranes are barriers that protect the inside of a cell. When theyre intact, nothing comes into the cell thats not supposed to. Damaged proteins make it easier for silver ions to pass through the cell membrane into the bacterias interior. Once inside, the silver wreaks enough havoc to cause the bacteria to die. The size, shape and concentration of the silver particles in the liquid solution determine how effective this process is. However, some studies show that bacteria can develop a resistance to silver.

But one problem with silver as a bacteria killer is that silver ions dont discriminate. A cell is a cell is a cell, so your healthy human cells may be at risk for damage as well.

Theres potential harm with the internal use of colloidal silver, says Dr. Young. The silver could enter your healthy cells and cause them to die, just like they cause bacteria to die. However, some studies say colloidal silver may benefit minor skin wounds or burns.

Manufacturers sell colloidal silver as a spray or liquid. Product names vary, but youll most often see these names on the store shelf:

How much colloidal silver each product contains depends on the manufacturer. Most range from 10 to 30 parts per million (ppm) of silver. But even this concentration may be too much. Thats because it would be easy to exceed the unsafe dose limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The WHO and EPA base these limits on the development of serious colloidal silver side effects like skin discoloration not the lowest dose that could lead to harm. So, even if you stay below the unsafe dose limits, you could still cause injury to yourself, though you may avoid the most serious side effects.

The answer is a firm no if you want to take it internally, says Dr. Young.

Just because something is an over-the-counter herb or supplement does not mean its safe. Not only did the FDA warn against using colloidal silver internally, but the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health also says it can cause serious side effects, says Dr. Young. You should avoid it. It can cause harm, and there isnt any strong scientific evidence that it is effective.

Potential side effects of taking colloidal silver internally include:

The bottom line: Never take colloidal silver internally, as it isnt proven to be effective or safe. But if you want to use it on your skin, first get your doctors advice. Some doctors use silver-containing medicines to fight infections, such as conjunctivitis. Manufacturers also add silver to some bandages and dressings to help people heal faster.

Colloidal silvers benefits may extend to minor infections, irritations and burns when put on the skin, explains Dr. Young. Silvers antimicrobial effect can help prevent or treat an infection. But if you see the affected area becoming red or inflamed after using colloidal silver, stop using it and seek medical attention.

Colloidal silver manufacturing is like the Wild West, with few rules and oversight, so you really dont know what youre buying. Stay safe by following your doctors guidance.

Continued here:

Is Colloidal Silver Safe and Effective? - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic

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Pacritinib Granted Accelerated Approval for Use in Myelofibrosis With Severe Thrombocytopenia – Cancer Network

Posted: at 9:38 pm

Patients with intermediate- or high-risk primary or secondary myelofibrosis with a low platelet count may derive benefit from treatment with pacritinib following its accelerated approval by the FDA.

Pacritinib (Vonjo) received accelerated approval from the FDA at a twice daily, 200-mg dose for patients with intermediate- or high-risk primary or secondary myelofibrosis who are experiencing severe thrombocytopenia with a platelet count below 50 109/L, according to a press release from CTI BioPharma Corporation.1

The agencys decision comes from results of the phase 3 PERSIST-2 study (NCT02055781).

Treatment with pacritinib at 200 mg resulted in a reduction in spleen volume of at least 35% for 29% of patients, vs 3% of patients who received the best available therapy, including ruxolitinib (Jakafi). As part of the post-approval plans for pacritinib, the phase 3 PACIFICA trial (NCT03165734) will be completed with results estimated in 2025.

Today's approval of Vonjo establishes a new standard of care for myelofibrosis patients suffering from cytopenic myelofibrosis, John Mascarenhas, MD, associate professor of medicine, hematology and medical oncology at Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, said in a press release. Myelofibrosis with severe thrombocytopenia, defined as blood platelet counts below 50 109/L, has been shown to result in poor survival outcomes coupled with debilitating symptoms. Limited treatment options have rendered this disease as an area of urgent unmet medical need. I am pleased to see that a new, efficacious and safe treatment option is now available for these patients.

The PERSIST-2 study, which assessed the use of pacritinib compared with best available therapy in patients with myelofibrosis and thrombocytopenia, enrolled 311 patients. Those who enrolled were randomized into 1 of 3 treatment regimens, including pacritinib once daily (n = 104), pacritinib twice daily (n = 107), or a best alternative treatment (n = 100). Best alternative treatments included ruxolitinib (45%), hydroxyurea (19%), and prednisone and/or prednisolone (13%).2

At the 24-week mark, 15% of patients taking pacritinib once daily and 22% taking the agent twice daily experienced a 35% or higher reduction in spleen volume compared with 3% of those taking a best alternative treatment. Differences between the 3 treatment groups did not reach significance in terms of overall survival, including between the once daily (HR, 1.18; 95% CI, 0.57-2.44) and twice daily pacritinib arms (HR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.30-1.53). The treatment also yielded a 25% reduction in total symptom score of 50% or more in the pacritinib arms vs 14% in the control group.

Additionally, the phase 3 PERSIST-1 study (NCT01773187) examined the use of pacritinib vs best available therapy for myelofibrosis regardless of baseline cytopenias. Results from the trial indicated that pacritinib was well tolerated and resulted in sustained spleen volume and symptom reduction.3 This study showed that patients with baseline cytopenias could have a treatment option with pacritinib. At week 34, 19% (n = 42) of patients treated with pacritinib experienced a 35% or more reduction in spleen volume reduction compared with 5% (n = 5) in the best alternative treatment group (P = .0003).

The most common grade 3/4 adverse events through week 24 in the pacritinib group were anemia (17%), thrombocytopenia (12%), and diarrhea (5%) compared with anemia (15%), thrombocytopenia (11%), dyspnea (3%), and hypotension (3%) in the best available therapy cohort. A total of 12% (n = 27) of patients died in the pacritinib group and 13% (n = 14) in the best alternative treatment group died.

Pacritinib was also assessed as part of the dose-finding phase 2 PAC203 study (NCT03165734) vs ruxolitinib in patients with myelofibrosis and severe thrombocytopenia.4 Patients who were administered 200 mg of pacritinib twice daily experienced the highest reduction in spleen volume and total symptom score. In particular, patients with a baseline platelet count of less than 50 109/L experienced a promising reduction in splenic volume (14%).

Patients who were treated with 200 mg of pacritinib twice a day did not experience an excess of grade 3 or higher hemorrhagic or cardiac events.

Original post:

Pacritinib Granted Accelerated Approval for Use in Myelofibrosis With Severe Thrombocytopenia - Cancer Network

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The #1 Best Supplement to Take If You Exercise, Says Dietitian Eat This Not That – Eat This, Not That

Posted: at 9:37 pm

When it comes to your exercise routine, knowing exactly what kinds of foods boost your workout can give you a serious leg up. According to The Mayo Clinic, a solid breakfast that features a banana, yogurt, juice, and whole-grain cereals can get your workout starting right, while a smoothie, peanut butter sandwich, or some more yogurt after the workout can help your muscles rebuild and replenish lost nutrients.

Knowing exactly what to eat can seriously boost your exercise game, but even with the right eating plan, athletes can benefit from something extra. A ton of workout supplements have hit shelves over the years, ranging from creatine and protein powder, all the way to green tea extract and simple multivitamins. While you have a wide variety of supplements to choose from, one particular nutrient can work wonders after you exercise.

"Endurance athletes are at risk of joint damage, pain, and oxidative stress," says Trista Best, RD at Balance One Supplements. "This requires some antioxidant-rich foods and supplements to help reverse oxidative damage from natural wear and tear that can affect performance."

"Turmeric is an antioxidant that has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries for a wide variety of ailments," Best continues. "Turmeric can be taken in powder or capsule form and added to a daily supplement regimen of the endurance athlete."

When it comes to choosing a post-exercise supplement that can get your body moving right, you can't go wrong with turmeric. According to Harvard Medical School, turmeric contains curcumin, the active antioxidant ingredient in the supplement. Some research shows this nutrient alleviates inflammation in the knees, in addition to boosting one's cardiovascular health.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

A study found in Annals of Internal Medicine discovered that turmeric reduces joint inflammation better than placebos and doesn't have the toxic side effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) like Ibuprofen. These results were verified in a separate study published in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine where scientists found doses of turmeric to have similar effectiveness to doses of NSAIDs.

While turmeric supplements can provide some post-workout relief and help your joints recover after high-impact exercise, you still need to watch out when it comes to the right dosage. Another study found in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that too much turmeric can lead to the buildup of kidney stones. Although, another article found in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine revealed that participants could generally handle high doses of turmeric without dangerous side effects.

If you need to boost your workout regimen, you can always talk to your physician about taking a turmeric supplement for boosting joint health and recovery. Especially if you love jogging, swimming, or other endurance exercises.

To take your workout diet to the next level, don't stop at just turmeric supplements. Try incorporating 14 Best Foods for Better Workout Results for a supercharged routine.

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The #1 Best Supplement to Take If You Exercise, Says Dietitian Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

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A wave of long COVID is bringing attention to other mysterious chronic illnesses : Shots – Health News – NPR

Posted: at 9:37 pm

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The number of new COVID cases is in steep decline in many parts of the country. But we don't yet know how many of the people who've had COVID will develop long COVID, with chronic symptoms that may include fatigue, shortness of breath, coughing, joint pain, muscle pain, chest pain and problems with focus and memory. The attention researchers are devoting to long COVID may end up benefiting people with mysterious, hard-to-diagnose diseases, including Lyme disease, and autoimmune diseases like chronic fatigue, syndrome and fibromyalgia. Patients with these diseases have often been told it's all in their heads.

My guest Meghan O'Rourke has been writing about long COVID for The Atlantic and Scientific American. Her new book is about her own experiences with chronic illness. It started in the late 1990s, soon after graduating college. Her symptoms over the years have included extreme fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, nerve pain that felt like constant electric shocks, hives, fevers and more. She's been diagnosed with Lyme disease and several autoimmune diseases and tried many different approaches to treating them. Her new book, "The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness," is also a diagnosis of our medical system and how ill-equipped it is to deal with patients who are suffering with illnesses for which we may not even have names yet, let alone treatments. O'Rourke is a former fiction/nonfiction editor at The New Yorker, former culture and literary editor at Slate and is now the editor of The Yale Review.

Megan O'Rourke, welcome to FRESH AIR. COVID has been triggering epic rates of long COVID, whose symptoms are very similar to autoimmune diseases. And long COVID seems to be related to immune dysregulation. Can you compare long COVID with the autoimmune diseases that you write about in your book that you've experienced? What do they have in common?

MEGHAN O'ROURKE: Absolutely. So long COVID is characterized by a wide variety of symptoms that persist long after the initial infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And those symptoms, you know, might include chest pain. But they also include so-called vague and subjective symptoms, like brain fog or fatigue and roaming pain in the body. For some patients, these symptoms come and go a little bit. They are also hard to measure on certain kinds of conventional lab tests. And all of this puts pressure on patients who then have to testify to the reality of their own illness.

In this way, it's quite similar to many of the autoimmune diseases and the other diseases I write about in my book because these are diseases that we lack really good tools for measuring, especially in early states of the disease. They're diseases that can come and go. They're diseases that can be affected and worsened by stress. And they're diseases, therefore, that are often contested by medicine.

You know, we can get into it further, but we - there's a lot we still don't know about what exactly long COVID is. And a lot of the researchers I've reported on have said to me the term itself may be an umbrella term in the end that encompasses a few different kinds of conditions that we come to understand better. And, in fact, one of those conditions may be autoimmune disease, right? We do have evidence that long COVID seems to be triggering pretty substantial rates of autoimmune disease in some patients who get COVID.

GROSS: Because of long COVID, I think it's fair to say, researchers are putting more time and energy and resources behind understanding these mysterious illnesses because so many people have long COVID. So what is the latest researchers have discovered about possible causes of long COVID that might have impact on other chronic diseases?

O'ROURKE: There's a number of governing theories about what long COVID is, and they range from - you know, when we got sick, our immune system springs into action - right? - trying to get rid of the pathogens that have, you know, entered or even invaded, we might say, our body and tries to push them out. And so one theory of long COVID has been that in some people, that immune response just doesn't turn off for, you know, a wide variety of reasons. And so they keep getting damage to their body done by their own immune system, either an autoimmune process or inflammation. Just - we've all heard that term, right?

There's also some evidence suggesting that in some parts of the body, fragments of the virus remain, or in other parts that the virus itself remains persisting and triggering ongoing immune action. A recent study found that there are some indicators that can tell us a little bit about who might be prone to get long COVID. One such indicator is the level of coronavirus RNA in your blood early on in the infection. So that tells us something about that term viral load we've all heard about. So if you have a high viral load early in your infection, even if your symptoms are mild, you might end up with long COVID.

There's also evidence that some of these things called autoantibodies, which are the antibodies in autoimmune disease - these are antibodies that instead of attacking those pathogens that are coming into your body, actually end up mistakenly, mysteriously attacking your own tissue instead. Another factor is people who have reactivated Epstein-Barr virus, which many of us have had. But some of us have these episodes of reactivation. That can be kind of a sign that you might develop long COVID. And another is the presence of Type 2 diabetes.

GROSS: Have you been reporting on long COVID because you know it's related to the problems that you and so many other people have had with chronic, often autoimmune diseases?

O'ROURKE: Absolutely. So, Terry, when the coronavirus pandemic came to the U.S., kind of the first big wave in March - it was in the U.S. before - but during that first wave, what kept me up at night as the coronavirus pandemic came to the United States was not just the wave of acute infections that were clearly coming but also the prospect of a tremendous wave of chronic illness that would follow them. The research I had been doing already for five years had taught me that in many cases, infections can leave ongoing problems in a subset of patients in ways that we're just beginning in medical science to really research and understand. Many autoimmune diseases are triggered by viruses, in fact. It's the interaction of a virus or an infection with your own genetics can in some cases trigger conditions like lupus or multiple sclerosis, as we just found out in a big study.

So I had been talking to virologists who - and researchers - who work on the ways that Epstein-Barr creates all kinds of, you know, long conditions. And, you know, reading these early reports of the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus just had me worrying that a tremendous number of people were going to get sick and never get better. So I was kind of lurking on message boards and reading around from pretty much April of 2020 to see what I was seeing and pretty quickly just started seeing these terrifying messages that reminded me so much of my own case, where people were saying, I just never got better. I got sick. I have brain fog. My energy is gone. I'm not the person I once was. And I read those with a chill of recognition.

GROSS: You write, you know, the stories we tell about illness usually have startling beginnings, like the fall at the supermarket, the lump discovered in the abdomen. But yours doesn't have one story like that. You have several ways of telling how your problems started. Would you describe a couple of those ways over the years?

O'ROURKE: Yeah. So my illness is hard to put a starting point to. There's a version in which I can say I had strange symptoms from when I was a young child. But one of the ways I can talk about it is that in the fall of 1997, not long after I had graduated from college, I was walking to work from my, you know, East Village apartment, you know, excited for my new life as a person in the city. And as I was walking down East Ninth Street toward First Avenue, these terrible electric shocks came over my body. It was like someone was sticking tiny needles all over my legs and arms. And the sensation was so severe that if I didn't rub my legs, they would start spasming. And I had to stop and lean against a parking meter and just wait until this episode had passed, some 15 minutes later.

From then on, I started getting these electric shocks daily and having strange bouts of vertigo and fatigue and dizziness, and I never really got better. I sort of went up and down for years, and I had a roller coaster of different problems - abdominal pain, dizziness and fainting, joint pain, memory loss, incredible fatigue, hives, and then these very strange drenching night sweats that started after - not long after 9/11. Any time I went to a doctor, they would say, look. Your labs look great. You're this relatively healthy young woman. Maybe you're just a little bit stressed. You have a really stressful job.

And I kind of didn't ask too many more questions until I was in my 30s. And one day, I was driving a colleague home from a Christmas party at Princeton, where we were then teaching. And this was someone I had known, you know, in New York for 15 years. We were colleagues. And it was really strange. We were driving past an exit, and I looked over at him. And all of a sudden, I had no idea who he was. And I did know that I knew him, but I could not have told you his name. I could not have told you even in what capacity I knew him or how long or how I had met him.

And so I kind of, rattled, drove all the way home - and actually remembered who he was at one point - walked up the stairs to my apartment after parking, and spoke to my partner. And I said, look. This just happened. Has something like this ever happened to you? And that was the moment where his face really got alarmed. And he said, no, I think, you know, something really is wrong. And that was the moment, I think, when I just really started to realize that I needed answers no matter what.

GROSS: What kind of doc do you go to when so many parts of your body are affected? You can go to your internist. It's hard to figure out what specialist to go to because, is it a nerve specialist? Is it a joint specialist? Is it, you know, a memory - like, who do you - what were some of the dilemmas you faced about even figuring out where to seek help?

O'ROURKE: I was so naive, Terry. I didn't know, really, that you needed to even go to specialists. Like, I just didn't - I was young. I just really didn't understand very much. And so it took a long time to figure out that I should keep asking questions and ask to be referred to specialists. And when I did finally figure that out, I started to cease - just ask around - right? - and then, in the way one does, someone recommends somebody, you go see them.

I ended up seeing a really tremendous doctor who specializes in women's health who was the first to take my history and listen to me and say, I think you really do have an autoimmune disease. But by the time she diagnosed me, there were so many things going wrong in my body that I ended up seeing, I think, nine different specialists, all to sort of attack different problems I was having, right? - a neurologist, a dermatologist, an immunologist. And, you know, none of these doctors were really speaking to each other or communicating, and they really were just looking at the piece that fell under their jurisdiction. So there was no one stepping back and taking a look at my health as a whole and saying, what's wrong with this person? She has so many seemingly different symptoms. Is there a way in which they might be connected?

GROSS: So when you go to a dermatologist and complain about your hives, would you tell them about the brain fog and other issues that you were having, or did they just - did you withhold that information, or were they just dismissive and said, you know, like, that's not my field; I can't help you with that?

O'ROURKE: (Laughter) I think in a lot of cases, I didn't tell them just because it didn't come up, right? The basic building block of modern medicine in America are these 15-minute doctor's appointments, right? And so you go in, and the person asks you a few questions, and it just didn't even maybe come up that all this other stuff was going on. Why would I tell my dermatologist I had night sweats?

Over time, as I got sicker and more practiced and more assertive about my need for answers, I would sometimes tell the doctor, look. Here's this full array of problems that I'm having. And I just remember vividly watching one doctor's face change - right? - as my list of symptoms got longer. And I just felt him back away. This was a doctor I didn't know very well that I'd been referred to. I just saw him think, oh, this is a problem patient - a so-called problem patient, right? This is a person who is invested in being sick. I could just feel his thoughts across the room.

And after that, I have to tell you, I really did start picking and choosing what I told doctors because I really wanted to get them on my side. I really wanted them to be invested in helping me. And I had come to think that if I told them the full extent of what was going on with me, they might think I was a hypochondriac.

GROSS: Let's take a short break, and then we'll be right back and talk some more. My guest is Meghan O'Rourke, author of the new book "Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness." We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF STEFANO BOLLANI'S "ALOBAR E KUDRA")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Meghan O'Rourke. Her new book, "Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness," is about living with chronic illnesses that took years to be diagnosed, including chronic Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr and endometriosis. The book is also about what scientists are learning about autoimmune diseases and why our system of medical specialists is not designed to deal with illnesses that affect multiple parts of the body in mysterious ways.

So you were saying that you knew that some doctors were thinking of you as a problem patient, a - you know, a patient who is invested in being sick. How did that make you feel?

O'ROURKE: It was the hardest part of being sick. I felt incredibly lonely. And what was challenging about it was that living with illness is hard enough, right? I was dealing with pain. I was dealing with the inability to do the work that I loved, which was writing and reading - was really, really hard for me at that stage. But the hardest part of being ill was that I didn't feel I had any advocate on my side who even believed fully in the reality of what I was describing to them.

And it meant that I felt that, you know, in a sense, kind of locked away in a room like a 19th-century hysteric, right? I didn't - I couldn't figure out how to have doctors become my allies in the way that they were supposed to be. And I just couldn't get to the place where I felt that anyone was truly interested in my condition until - you know, at a certain point, I started to meet the doctors who kind of would become the detectives at my side. But there was a period of just extreme loneliness that brought about despair, right?

GROSS: And so you just compared your problems with how doctors diagnosed women with similar problems in the 19th century and called it hysteria, which was a psychological diagnosis. You know, like, you're imagining all of this. It's in your head. Women are prone to hysteria. That was the diagnosis in the 19th century. And you compare women with autoimmune disease to that diagnosis of hysteria in the 19th century. Can you talk about the similarities?

O'ROURKE: Yeah. So what's really interesting is that the original kind of epidemic of diagnosing hysteria in the 19th century - there's other prehistories that we can talk about, too - but that sort of 19th century image we have of the hysterical woman. At first, doctors really thought this was what they call an organic disease, which is to say a disease rooted in systems of the body's organs. A lot of women who ended up diagnosed with hysteria had abdominal pain, bouts of fatigue, symptoms that came and went.

So doctors originally were trying to kind of figure out what was wrong with these women, and they thought that it was a disorder of the nervous system, which was newly discovered and something there was a lot of excitement around. And when they couldn't find an answer in their tests, they then ended up abandoning that idea. And doctors start to increasingly talk about the ways that hysteria is caused by women's brains, that women are trying to use their brains too much. And so therefore, they're sick.

And the reason I compare autoimmune diseases and chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic Lyme disease and fibromyalgia to hysteria and say these are today's hysteria is that it's very much the case in the research I did that you can see medicine is incredibly uncomfortable with areas of uncertainty, diseases it can't measure, diseases it doesn't have a really clear handle on. And so when women especially, but actually anyone who has one of these diseases, goes into a doctor's office and says, doctor, you know, I'm experiencing fatigue, I'm experiencing brain fog, it comes and goes, you very quickly get to the question of whether you're anxious when lab tests don't show really clear-cut answers.

So there's this really fascinating phenomenon in current medical science in which patients who live at the edge of medical knowledge - right? - patients whose diseases we have a tough time measuring or we just don't understand yet - we don't know how to differentiate properly - rather than being told, hey; you're probably someone who has something I don't understand, such patients are often told, I think you should see a psychiatrist. I think you are suffering from anxiety. Maybe you have depression, right?

And I want to be really clear, you know, advances in how we treat mental illness are one of the great triumphs of 20th-century medicine, and it's really important to talk about mental health and chronic illness. But the problem I kept seeing patients talk to me about was that - and what happened to me - is that doctors often go to the kind of suspicion of anxiety in a way that forecloses further investigation into what might be going on.

GROSS: So you went to one doctor who said, your symptoms are very real, but that doesn't mean we know how to cure you. And that was so helpful to you. Why did you find that so useful even though she didn't have a solution?

O'ROURKE: Yeah, this was my neurologist. She just was incredibly kind. She's very smart. She looked at me and said, I completely believe something is going on with you. We just don't know what it is, and we may not be able to help you. And the recognition of that changed everything for me because it went - I went from trying to get someone else to believe in what I was saying to feeling that I had an ally who did believe me. And that brought hope with it, and I think it brought the comforts of being seen.

GROSS: Let's take another break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Meghan O'Rourke, author of the new book "Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness." We'll be back after a short break. I am Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "THE FALCON WILL FLY AGAIN")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Meghan O'Rourke. Her new book, "Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness," is about living with chronic illnesses that took years to be diagnosed, including chronic Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr and endometriosis. The book is also about what scientists are learning about autoimmune diseases and why our system of medical specialists is not designed to deal with illnesses that affect multiple parts of the body in mysterious ways. O'Rourke is a former editor at The New Yorker and Slate and is now editor of the Yale Review. She's been reporting on long COVID in publications like The Atlantic and Scientific American.

So tell us what diseases you've been diagnosed with and the ones that turned out to be real.

O'ROURKE: Over time, I was eventually diagnosed with something called autoimmune thyroiditis, which is thyroid disease that's caused by autoimmune processes in your body, with your body attacking your thyroid. I was diagnosed with Lyme disease that had gone missed for probably 15 years. And I was ultimately also diagnosed with a genetic condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is a group of connective tissue disorders. You know, we all think of collagen as - we know collagen from skin care products - right? - and sort of flexible skin. Well, in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, your collagen is too fragile, so it tears really easily. And your veins Don't constrict properly. And so as a result, I also have dysautonomia, which is a autonomic nervous system disorder that causes, in my case, fainting and dizziness and can contribute to brain fog.

GROSS: Are these all connected? Are these all sourced to a similar problem? Or do you just happen to be vulnerable to multiple diseases?

O'ROURKE: It's a really good question. There's not a clear answer to that question, but a lot of researchers suspect that when you have some of these conditions, such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or when you get Lyme disease, you are more susceptible to other conditions that come along with it. We do know that infections can trigger autoimmune disease. One of my doctors said, we don't know if you would have gotten autoimmune disease anyway or if the Lyme helped cause the autoimmune activity in your body. I also have some other sort of vague autoimmune stuff.

You know, there's this theory of a kind of overlapping set of conditions, where once you get one infection that dysregulates your immune system, then when the next infection comes along, it causes more dysregulation, right? And along the way, in addition to these diagnoses that I still live with, I had a lot of Epstein-Barr virus that kept getting reactivated, and other viruses. So clearly, you know, at the time, I thought, am I just incredibly unlucky? But what my research taught me is that - and the researchers I've worked with have told me, is that these conditions really do tend to cluster, right? And that's part of what leads to patients not being believed.

GROSS: So you know, when we talk about autoimmune diseases, the basic way of describing that is that your immune system attacks healthy tissues instead of attacking germs. What triggers that kind of response where your immune system attacks healthy tissues, leading to the kinds of disorders you've described?

O'ROURKE: Researchers are still trying to answer that question. But we have a host of possible answers. One thing we know is that infections can trigger that response in a subset of patients who are just genetically susceptible, right? You have a certain mutation. And the virus comes in. And then it can lead to or help contribute to autoimmune disease. One of the mysteries of autoimmune diseases is that they're rising at epidemic rates in Western countries.

So one of the things that researchers suspect is that something in our environment is changing our immune systems. That could be anything from the vast new number of chemicals to changes in our food system and how we eat, and how that impacts our microbiome. It could involve a whole host of things, but things like changes in your microbiome - stress is a major cause. We have studies that suggest having what's called an adverse childhood event, a significant childhood trauma, can increase your risk of autoimmune disease later in life. So you know, there's a lot of mystery still here. But what's really clear is that something in the environment is changing and contributing to it.

GROSS: You tried a lot of different treatments over the years. What were some of the more extreme or dubious ones that you tried because you felt so desperate and nothing was working?

O'ROURKE: Yeah. So in the book, I try to chronicle my quest and other patients' quest as a way of showing how and why patients do things that they might not do in other circumstances. So in the book, I talk about, you know, seeing many integrative doctors who really helped me, and then some doctors and practitioners who I might, you know, not see today - one of whom gave me colloidal silver extract and had me take it, another of whom did a procedure where he extracted some of my blood and put ultraviolet light in it and put it back in my body - right? - which some patients swear by.

But I really didn't trust this guy. And I just wanted to walk out of there. And I didn't because I was so desperate - right? - at the time. A very, you know, maybe seemingly strange treatment I did, but one that has a lot of solid medical evidence behind it, was what's called a fecal microbiota transplant (laughter), which I don't know if I want to go into too much here. But it involves transplanting, you know, fecal microbiome from one person into another.

GROSS: Yeah. So the microbiome is the collection of microbes, bacteria, in your digestive system that might contribute to good health or poor health, depending on what those microbes are. And the idea behind a fecal transplant is that you take, basically, the feces of someone with a healthy microbiome and transplant that through - what? - a syringe into the unhealthy person's microbiome. And you flew to England to get that done. It's still a pretty experimental treatment. But I think it's gaining traction among medical professionals, right?

O'ROURKE: Yeah. Absolutely. So it's been accepted for the treatment of C. difficile infections, which are really intractable infections that hospitalized patients often get after antibiotics. And it is being used in the U.S. for that. But in my case, where I had taken a lot of antibiotics for - to treat Lyme disease, and I had in my 10 years of research learned that antibiotics can really contribute to autoimmune disease, I wanted to try to restore my microbiome or just get back to some fundamental health. And I decided to try this treatment, which I could get in England, but not in the U.S.

Yeah. And you've summarized it beautifully. It's basically that you're taking other people's microbiomes and trying to transplant some of it into you with the idea that those bacteria will colonize your own gut, right? And kind of get back to work. And the reason this is important is that one of the really startling things I learned in my research was how influential the microbiome is to our health in ways that, again, we're still just learning about.

But one researcher put it to me this way in a way I can't forget. He said, you know what, if our immune system is partially a system by which we interact with our microbiome, right? And what if the microbiome are kind of in conversation with our immune system? There's evidence to show that that's true, that the bacteria we have actually influence our immune system and also our genetic expression, epigenetics. So it just - the evidence all lined up for me in a way where I thought, this is something really worth doing. And it's been fascinating to read and report more on just how influential the microbiome is.

GROSS: So did it help you?

O'ROURKE: Oh, absolutely. I mean, after the treatment, about - they say it takes about three weeks to kind of settle in because it's almost like an organ transplant, right? I had an immune reaction. I felt really sick. And then about three weeks later, I felt better than I had ever felt. I started running, like, half marathons again. And I just, you know, had this kind of abundance of energy. And I got pregnant, which I been trying to do for years. So, you know, take that as it will - anecdotal data. But it certainly helped in my case.

GROSS: How long did it last?

O'ROURKE: It lasted - it seemed to last through my pregnancy. And then I got quite sick again when my son was 8 months old and took antibiotics again, and that definitely impacted my microbiome.

GROSS: So what did you do about it?

O'ROURKE: You know, I've been eating a lot of yogurt and kimchi because you want to eat a lot of fermented foods to support your microbiome. So I haven't done anything. You know, the pandemic started not too long after that. But I have thought about going - I mean, I'd like to go back to England and do this transplant again. It's something I really did put personal stock in that it kind of worked for me. Yeah.

GROSS: Well, let's take another break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Meghan O'Rourke. She's the author of the new book "Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF GAIA WILMER OCTET'S "MIGRATIONS")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Meghan O'Rourke. Her new book, "Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness," is about living with chronic illnesses that took years to be diagnosed, including Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr and endometriosis. The book is also about what scientists are learning about autoimmune diseases and long COVID and why our system of medical specialists is not designed to deal with illnesses that might affect multiple parts of the body in mysterious ways.

You had seen so many specialists over the years. You also saw integrative medicine doctors. And integrative medicine is medicine that looks at the patient as a whole, not just as, like, one organ or one body part, and that also tries to integrate traditional medicine - the kind of medicine that most doctors practice - with alternative medicines, like acupuncture, for instance. Did you find integrative medicine a helpful approach to understanding what was going on in your body?

O'ROURKE: I found it a tremendously helpful approach. I did a lot of work to find integrative doctors that I deeply trusted. And the reason I found it so helpful was that they take a whole-body approach, right? They are medically trained doctors, so they're looking at your labs, and they're prescribing medication when appropriate. But they were also talking to me about things like my sleeping habits, the level of stress in my life and food and food sensitivities and trying to really help me figure out what foods made me feel better and what foods made me feel worse, because a lot of the time when I ate, I just felt really sick afterwards. I got terrible headaches. So they worked with me very patiently to try to manage my illness.

And I think - you know, I spoke earlier about the loneliness I felt initially being sick. And I think working with integrative doctors helped me feel that I did have a partner in my health care. You know, I'm a very evidence-based person. So one always has questions about some of the aspects of medicine that are less well-studied, like supplements and all of that. But in my case, it just became really clear that what these doctors were doing with me, the kinds of lifestyle changes they were advocating made a big difference in my day-to-day functioning.

GROSS: The problem with evidence-based medicine is that when you have a condition that hasn't yet been named and there isn't yet a test for it, then it's hard to find the evidence. And if there's no evidence in evidence-based medicine, then does that mean you're not really sick? You know what I mean?

O'ROURKE: Oh, absolutely. I mean, you're saying something I said many times, which is, when you're at the edge of medical knowledge, the lack of evidence is treated as evidence that the problem is you and your mind - right? - not, maybe we don't have a test for this yet. So one practitioner I worked with talks about this as a kind of - you know, being overly beholden to evidence and thinking that evidence will always be there. But obviously, there's a lot we don't know yet about certain conditions.

One researcher, the father of autoimmune disease - his name is Noel Rose - before he died, I interviewed him. And he said, in some cases with autoimmune diseases, our tests only showed damage when the organ under attack is already 80% destroyed, which I found astonishing. And he said to me, look. At that point, the train is already off the tracks. So the question is, what do we do with these millions of people who have illnesses that we just don't know how to measure yet in a very measurement-oriented system?

GROSS: You changed your diet pretty radically. Give us a sense of some of the things when you were at your most diet-conscious, thinking that food was contributing to your bad health.

O'ROURKE: Yeah. So I could tell food was making me feel worse because I would get headaches after eating certain things. And so I went on what's called an elimination diet. And then I did what's called the autoimmune paleo diet, where you radically restrict a certain number of foods in the hopes of reducing inflammation in your body, that kind of heat and swollenness - right? - that can come with immune activity.

So (laughter) there was a point one summer when I first embarked on this where I was cooking everything. I was not eating dairy. I was not eating gluten, which I still can't eat. I was not eating eggs, which I still can't eat. I was basically eating vegetables and fruits and, you know, protein. And I would make my own almond milk so that it didn't have any additives in it. And I would stay up and kind of soak almonds and then peel the skins off the almonds and then grind them and then put it through a sieve and make the milk. And I just remember looking up at my partner, Jim, and this time, he had sort of poured a bowl of Frosted Flakes and, like, put sugar on top.

(LAUGHTER)

O'ROURKE: I'd eaten - had, like, three cookies - three donuts, rather, and a cup of coffee and, like, done the Times crossword puzzle. And I was still, like, laboriously pinching almond skins off and thinking, well, something is wrong here. But in my case, those dietary changes really helped a lot. The challenge was figuring out what were triggers for me - in my case, gluten. A lot of people with autoimmune disease just can't eat gluten. It turns out actually - probably have celiac disease. Other people in my family have it, which is an autoimmune reaction to gluten.

But I think another challenge is, once you've identified those triggers, not becoming anxious that food is going to make you sick, right? I think one thing I've seen in myself and other patients is that food is the one thing you can control when you're sick, right? So you can become overly focused on the idea that eating certain foods can make you feel sick. And that was something I had to sort of find the balance of. I remember finally just saying, OK, I'm going to eat some gluten-free pizza. It's fine. Yeah.

GROSS: Now that you know you have chronic illnesses, how are you dealing with the fact that you're not - in the foreseeable future unless science really changes, you're not going to get better? You'll have periods of feeling better, but then you'll have periods of feeling bad again 'cause you've gone many years with being sick and then nonsick and then sick and then not sick. And I don't know if you've given up hope that the not-sick parts are going to last very long. So how have you had to retune your personal narrative knowing that you have chronic illnesses?

O'ROURKE: I've had to accept uncertainty, right? I think like a lot of ambitious and young people, I thought I could control my own future (laughter). But, you know, as you get older, you learn that's not true no matter what, right? But I've had to really accept uncertainty. And I've had to get a kind of maturity that allowed me to say, I'm so sorry; I can't do that, to people. There's just times I can't do things that I would like to do. And it took years of being able to learn to say no. Again, it sounds really obvious, but I think this is part of the strangeness of living with a chronic illness - is that, you know, your desires can outpace your ability to do things.

So in my case, I have a pretty clear sense of what my capacities are and what my triggers are. But even so, I'll have flares where - you know, the nature of subjectivity is to mystify. So I'll give you an example. In November, I had a really bad flare. I was really sick, and I just thought - one of the symptoms of it was that I got very tired around 3 p.m., and I stopped being able to concentrate or read. And I just thought, oh, I'm 45. You know, maybe this is just what happens when you're 45 (laughter). And then, you know, a few weeks later, I got better, and I was, you know, able to read at all times of the day.

And I thought, oh, right (laughter). That's just the mystery of being chronically ill - is that you start to take a certain reality for everyone's reality. And then, you realize it's your reality, and it's your reality for a short time, hopefully, right? But I don't know what's coming. So that brings a lot of uncertainty with it.

(SOUNDBITE OF PHIL KEAGGY AND HOLT VAUGHN'S "BITTER SUITE")

How did you decide who to tell and who not to tell about how sick you were? For instance, you know - like, you've been an editor at The New Yorker. You were an editor for many years at Slate. These are high-powered positions. Did you tell the people at work what you were going through?

O'ROURKE: I really didn't. Again, I think for so long, I thought the problem was something with me. And I haven't used the word shame yet, but I definitely felt shame. I mean, there were - I felt some sense of failing. And even when I was really sick, it was probably a handful of people I talked to. And in fact, one thing many friends have said is, I just have no idea what you were going through. It just felt shameful to me, which I now have a different view of. But at the time, I was so in it. And because there was no name for it and also because I really needed, actually, that recognition, I was all the more scared to ask for it, I think.

So I was pretty private. And part of it was exactly what you say. Like, we live in this society where you're supposed to just get up after a fall, right? You're supposed to muscle through it. And I felt that what I was saying was the opposite, which was, stop. Look. I can't get - something's wrong. And I - yeah, I struggled with how to say that to anybody.

GROSS: You say if every age has its representative signature disease, chronic illness is ours. Why do you think that's true?

O'ROURKE: So I contend that this type of chronic illness - these mysterious, poorly understood diseases, such as chronic Lyme disease, myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome, long COVID autoimmune disease - are these signature conditions because of the ways in which we don't understand them well. And so they become conditions onto which we project a lot, right? They are conditions in which we find, I think, pointedly reflected back at us, habits of thought that reveal key cultural assumptions to us.

So one of the things I found in my reporting was that many people who lived with these illnesses, who lived with autoimmunity, thought that the problem was something in themselves was at war - right? - that they were living an inauthentic life. They hadn't lived the life they should lead. And in this way, they took their illness and they turned it into a metaphor for personal inauthenticity that only they could overcome - right? - which is a huge burden for an individual to live with.

And the point I wanted to make is that in telling this narrative in the ways that these diseases kind of allow both sick people and people who are healthy to see the problem as an individual problem allows us to look away from the social factors that are contributing to the rise of these diseases - so everything from food deserts to lack of chemical regulation to, you know, probably our chronically fast-paced lifestyles and lack of social safety nets for new mothers and all sorts of things, right? So I really just came to think that these diseases reveal something to us about our culture in a way that made them deeply representative of aspects of the time that we needed to look more deeply at.

GROSS: And you are a very educated person, a graduate of Yale who's worked for The New Yorker and Slate and now edit Yale Review. You had - you know, you're not wealthy by any means, but you had the money to pursue different specialists. And I'm sure you've thought a lot about people who don't have that kind of high-level education and don't have the money or the confidence or the time to seek the kind of medical attention that you were able to seek. And what happens to them?

O'ROURKE: One researcher said to me - I asked him this question. He was a high-level executive in health care, and he told me that those people fall through the cracks and they suffer alone, right? One of the things I tried to write about is the way that our lack of a social safety net and our history of systemic racism can actually make people sicker. And there's quite a lot of good evidence that suggests this, that the history of racism, socioeconomic challenges and disadvantages all contribute to structural insecurity. All can contribute to these conditions where your immune system is dysregulated.

And so while we're putting - you know, while conservatives tend to put the focus for health on individuals and lifestyle, it's really clear from, you know, research that, in fact, social structures are a major factor in all of this. And so I think we're witnessing a calamity that is one not of personal failure, but of societal failure and one that we really need to reckon with openly.

GROSS: Meghan O'Rourke, thank you so much for talking with us, and I wish you long periods of good health.

O'ROURKE: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure.

GROSS: Meghan O'Rourke is the author of the new book "Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be Anne Applebaum, who has been writing about Russia and Ukraine for The Atlantic and is the author of "Twilight Of Democracy: The Seductive Lure Of Authoritarianism" and "Red Famine: Stalin's War On Ukraine." I hope you'll join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU, KEVIN HAYS AND PATRICK ZIMMERLI'S "EXCERPT FROM STRING QUARTET #5")

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