Following this, I will describe my preferred approaches for addressing carpal tunnel syndrome (one of the most common causes of wrist pain and numbness in the fingers). I feel this topic is important to discuss because the commonly used approaches for mitigating carpal tunnel (e.g., regularly taking an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen or injecting steroids into the carpal tunnel) often do not work, and frequently create a variety of complications, whereas a variety of far better options exist.

Note: I was inspired to write this article as I was finishing up the next article in the DMSO series I’ve spent the last month working on (which supporters of this newsletter can read in advance here).

August Dvorak

When the earliest typewriters were made many different keyboard layouts were used (there was no existing standard), but they all suffered from a common issue; if you typed too quickly (specifically sequentially hitting keys next to each other) the typewriter would jam. To solve this issue, a keyboard was designed to prevent this from happening which made the sequential keys you would use be far away from each other. The typewriters with this layout gradually took over the marketplace, and before long, the QWERTY keyboard became the standard everyone utilized, even once the need for it had long since passed because typewriters that jammed had long ago gone extinct.
Note: the history of the QWERTY keyboard is commonly cited in economics as the classic example of path dependence where an inferior technology was locked in because the costs of switching it were too high. Nonetheless, almost no one to this day knows this happened.

August Dvorak was an educational psychologist and professor of education who served as an advisor for a master's thesis on typing errors. From it, he concluded that QWERTY’s prioritization of sequentially distant keyboard strokes to prevent typewriting jamming had the consequence of significantly impairing the ease and speed of typing. Dvorak then decided the QWERTY layout needed to be replaced, so he and his brother in law (another professor) spent years researching how to design a keyboard that would decrease typing errors, speed up typing, and lessen typist fatigue.

Eventually they developed a layout (in the 1930s) which emphasized having the most common letters on the home (middle) row, having frequently used keys be close to each other (so the fingers would not have to travel far for each keystroke) and having the fingers alternate between each keystroke (e.g., by having the vowels on one side and the most commonly used consonants on the other).

This for context is an illustration of the comparative keyboard layouts:

After developing the layout, a variety of studies and contests were conducted (e.g., by the US Navy) which allegedly demonstrated that the Dvorak keyboard layout was faster to learn, allowed individuals to type faster and created less repetitive strain from typing. For example, the world’s fastest typist used the Dvorak layout.

Note: To this day, I am not actually sure how much of the early research supporting adoption of the Dvorak layout actually occurred and how much of it was either fabricated or exaggerated by Dvorak proponents.

Despite many compelling reasons to have a more efficient keyboard layout, Dvorak was never adopted due to existing market pressures to stay with the standard layout everyone was already comfortable with. Eventually (at least according to the story I heard) Dvorak gave up, feeling bitter and depressed no one was interested in something he had put so much work into creating and promoting that he felt could genuinely help everyone. When I heard this, my heart went out for him, and I decided I had no excuse but to learn this layout he worked so hard to give us as I could afford to have a few weeks of impaired typing to do so.

Since that time, more advanced analytics have concluded the Dvorak is a more efficient layout to type with, but there is a bit of a debate over if that benefit is worth the hassle it takes to learn it. Since the Dvorak layout has maintained a devoted following, it has been available as an alternative language on most computer (and mobile) operating systems and numerous websites now exist to help train you in the layout. Additionally, a variety of alternative layouts like Colemak has been developed which also have a high rate of efficiency but are more similar to QWERTY and hence easier to learn (with the trade-off being the more similar to QWERTY, the less efficient they are).
Note: Dvorak layouts which change what each key on the keyboard does are built into most operating systems, so you can enable them on almost any modern computer. The best ones are the ones that switch to QWERTY when you input a command (as the commands evolved to fit the key placements on the keyboard, and, especially initially, it’s helpful to know you are hitting the right key for a command).

Once I learned the Dvorak layout, it was clear that it was much easier to type on it, and I gradually become exasperated when I had to type on QWERTY layouts as it was much slower, and importantly, much more straining. However, later in life, once medicine required me to type a lot of electronic notes (in settings where it was often quite difficult to enable Dvorak), I switched back to QWERTY and then had long periods where I would use one or the other (depending on my work situation).

At the time I started this newsletter, I had gone through a long QWERTY period and before long, began noticing, for the first time in my life, that I was developing pain with my wrists (in the carpal tunnel) so I gave myself a few tests that established it was definitely carpal tunnel syndrome. Before long, I realized I’d need to change back to Dvorak, and discovered much to my joy that external Dvorak keyboards and laptop keyboard covers in the Dvorak layout could easily be purchased online (as could stickers to place over keys). I got a cover, and since the layout was still in my distant muscle memory, I made the transition in a very short period (I believe it was a few days) and noticed a dramatic improvement in the amount of wrist strain lengthy typing sessions created.

In short, an immense amount of suffering essentially resulted from some odd historical quirks of fate that never were corrected (something that is surprisingly common).

I hence felt I needed to write this post, not only to bring attention to this, but also since the Dvorak layout played a pivotal role in making this Substack possible. Likewise it’s important to note, much of the advantage of Dvorak comes from the fact it is a mostly forgotten discovery; had Dvorak become mainstream, everyone would have been held to productivity rates it facilitated. Since it is not (and everyone instead is expected to type at the slower QWERTY rate) Dvorak offers a huge advantage to those who make use of it (although I acknowledge AI may eliminate the need for prolific typing in the not too distant future).

Note: the two times I normally use QWERTY are either when I am typing out a complex password, or when I need to write with one hand while walking and carrying a laptop (I try to make use of every available window to write). Since Dvorak is a “language” toggling between it and QWERTY is very easy in modern operating systems.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Carpal tunnel syndrome is one of the more common issues patients see their doctor for that we don’t really have a good solution to (e.g., I’ve had numerous patients who had a carpal tunnel decompression surgery that ultimately didn’t help them at all).

Conventional treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome, in turn begin with nighttime wrist splinting in a neutral position to reduce nerve pressure, activity modification and ergonomic adjustments to avoid repetitive strain then progress to short-term NSAIDs for pain and inflammation, corticosteroid injections for swelling relief (both of which can create significant issues), and physical therapy, and if that doesn’t work, carpal tunnel release surgery is done (where the transverse carpal ligament is cut to open the canal).

What stands out about this progression is that each step manages symptoms or relieves pressure mechanically, yet none of them ask why the pressure built up in the canal to begin with. That question is what eventually reframed how I understood the condition.

The first thing that clued me into what was actually causing carpal tunnel was the frequency with which I would see pregnant patients who mentioned they had developed carpal tunnel during their pregnancy. One of the major changes that happens during pregnancy is that the amount of fluid retained by the body increases and there is thus a general increase in swelling throughout the body. This suggested to me that the root cause of carpal tunnel was excessive fluid within the carpal tunnel that could not drain out. As I have emphasized here, impaired fluid circulation is a key cause of many chronic conditions, and the reasons why I am such a strong advocate for approaches like restoring zeta potential or utilizing DMSO is because it frequently restores critical fluid circulation throughout the body.

Note: this is not just my own clinical impression. Topical DMSO has decades of published support for tunnel neuropathies (including formal Russian clinical guidelines for carpal tunnel), and many of the reader DMSO reports I've received for wrist issues (including those following a carpal tunnel surgery) have been remarkable.

The second thing was that all the extra time I needed to write on Substack required me to use each available window I had for writing. This frequently meant that I needed to use awful ergonomics while writing, which I fully admit I actively discourage my patients from doing. Prior to this, I had experimented with a variety of typing positions and concluded the best options were either:

•Use some type of accessory set up which raises your monitor to the level of your head so you do not need to look down and bend your head forward (this really adds up over time).

•Using a treadmill desk (people are always selling them and used ones are fairly cheap).
Note: you need specialized treadmills designed to run at a slow speed for a prolonged period. If you repurpose an existing treadmill, you may run into issues with it.

•Use a standing desk.

•Squat (with each leg going out diagonally at approximately 45 degrees) while having a support against your back. If you find the right type of rolling office chair (e.g. one you can control the height of where the arm rests are at the correct height for your legs and the back vertically supports you), this becomes quite easy to do.

Note: Generally speaking, I think squatting is much healthier for you than sitting, and that many chronic health problems come from people sitting too much (a viewpoint that is gradually becoming more accepted by the medical profession—"sitting is the new smoking"). The setting where the ills of sitting become the most apparent occurs each time you go to the toilet (as sitting causes the puborectalis muscle to compress part of the rectum, thereby making it harder to push poop out). As a result, many find using a device like the Squatty Potty which cause them to squat when on the toilet to be very helpful for things like constipation, and there is some evidence to support this.

As I’ve gotten to know some of the other individuals who write prolifically on this platform (which requires frequently utilizing their laptop in poor ergonomic situations), I’ve discovered they also developed many of the same musculoskeletal issues I identified. For example, quite a few of them moved along this progression which causes a lot of problems as it progresses if not addressed.

There are a lot of different schools of thought on how to treat carpal tunnel syndrome, and while their proponents tend to argue their approach constitutes the correct way to treat the condition, the reality is that each is valid for some cases of carpal tunnel but not others. As a result, people often spend a lot of money seeing various people who claim they can treat the condition but then fail to do so.

Regardless of the approach you use however, one of the important things to recognize with the body mind and spirit is that it always has a threshold of stress it can tolerate, and then once that point is passed, strain and damage gradually accumulates in the body. Many problems in our society come from people not recognizing when they have passed that threshold and are overstraining their body (which I again must admit I’ve been guilty of while writing here).

In the case of the wrists, once you start noticing they are having issues, it’s dramatically easier to fix them if you back off and give them a bit of time to recover (e.g., switching to dictation, taking a break, or doing a quick self-care approach for the carpal tunnel) rather than being forced to take a long break because they’ve gotten too sore to be able to write with. One helpful test to see how far you’ve pushed your wrists is to tap the middle of the wrist (the carpal tunnel) with a procedure known as the Tinel’s test as the nerves in it will typically go off prior to you experiencing overt pain or numbness in your fingers.

For the remainder of this article, I will discuss the approaches you can do at home that I have found to be the most helpful to address the specific consequences of poor ergonomics and poor posture that cause the body to age and no longer tolerate repetitive wrist strain that eventually leads to carpal tunnel syndrome and numbness or weakness in the hands (along with how to use DMSO for carpal tunnel—which while effective, I’ve never actually needed to do because I utilized the other approaches which addressed the root causes of carpal tunnel).

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• DMSO is an “umbrella remedy” whose combination of therapeutic properties (improving circulation, reducing inflammation, protecting cells, and reviving dying ones) makes it uniquely suited to treat a variety of conditions particularly “incurable” neurological disorders and the chronic pain that accompanies them.

• Through its actions on water, DMSO temporarily shifts the phase of cell membranes and cytoskeletons, after which they reform in a strengthened configuration, facilitating DMSO’s prized ability to transport substances across biological barriers without damaging them, creating a cellular reset that can resolve dysfunctional circuits giving rise to a variety of neurological disorders.

• DMSO selectively blocks the small nerve fibers (C fibers) responsible for chronic pain transmission while sparing larger fibers, producing analgesia lasting approximately 6 hours (compared with 2 hours for morphine) through mechanisms independent of opioid receptors. Hundreds of readers have reported it transforming chronic neuropathic pain, migraines, fibromyalgia, and nerve damage from diabetes, chemotherapy, vaccines, and surgery, often after years of failed conventional treatments.

• DMSO promotes peripheral nerve regeneration through multiple converging mechanisms (microtubule stabilization, Schwann cell proliferation, stem cell differentiation into neurons, and enhanced axonal resealing), with readers reporting return of sensation and motor function in nerves damaged for years or even decades.

• DMSO has been extensively used in clinical practice for peripheral neuropathies, with Level 1 evidence for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and demonstrated benefit for facial nerve palsy, trigeminal neuralgia, post-herpetic neuralgia, compression neuropathies, diabetic neuropathy, and fibromyalgia, while its unique interactions with the opioid system (enhancing endogenous enkephalin signaling, upregulating opioid receptors, and counteracting opioid-induced hyperalgesia) suggest broader implications for the chronic pain crisis.

• This article summarizes the extensive data demonstrating DMSO’s efficacy for peripheral neurological conditions (approximately 600 studies and 400 pertinent reader testimonials), and concludes with practical guidance on DMSO protocols and the most potent DMSO pain formulation.

Over the last two years, I have compiled an extensive series of articles, which through citing thousands of studies, made the case that DMSO cures or improves a wide variety of conditions in every organ system of the body (all of which are indexed here)—including many diseases that are widely considered incurable (e.g., COPD or vision loss). Corroborating this, thousands of readers who were inspired to try DMSO have submitted almost unbelievable testimonials (which I’ve compiled here), and this series has now received millions of views.

DMSO, in turn, has a variety of properties that make it remarkably well-suited to healing the nervous system, resulting in thousands upon thousands of studies being published. I have therefore attempted to collect and compile all of them, but because so many exist, regardless of how much I condensed them, it was not possible to fit them all into one article. As such, this is the third part of a four-part series, and critical context for this article can be found in the previously published pieces.

In turn, I have received many nearly unbelievable reports from readers, such as a mother rescuing her son from a life of paraplegia with DMSO (creating a story so miraculous many news stations chronicled his recovery)

Another reading sharing an equally extraordinary case (that Mary Beth Pfeiffer verified with the patient)

Or this case of terminal ALS (and brain fog) rapidly transforming into full functionality:

Note: we are now interviewing readers with remarkable DMSO stories they shared with us, but unfortunately lost the contact information for a few of the readers who used DMSO to treat the follow conditions: colorblindness (becoming able to differentiate pink from orange or red), terminal pulmonary fibrosis, the son in the UK with fibro dysplasia ossificans progressiva, and sudden hearing loss in both ears that began in Taiwan. If you could contact me again, or email Dan (who is helping Rebecca compile testimonials) at DMSOexperiences@proton.me that would be greatly appreciated. Likewise, if you have a compelling DMSO story to share, please contact them at that address or leave a comment here—it will help a lot of people.

Nonetheless, all of this has provoked an understandable degree of skepticism—something being able to do this goes against many of the precepts modern medicine revolved around as it chooses to follow a biochemical model where change is created by affecting specific molecular targets rather (with a discrete number of effects), a choice I believe arose because this framework allows a nearly infinite number of patentable (narrowly focused) drugs to be made. In contrast, other marginalized models of medicine, such as the biophysical framework exist which provide a means for agents to affect a large number of diseases (and in many cases, unlike biochemical agents, address their root causes).

Because of this, I have tried to detail the evidence for every known mechanism of action of DMSO. These include:

• Blocking pain transmission, relaxing muscles, and inhibiting acetylcholinesterase.¹

• Acting as a highly potent anti-inflammatory and free radical scavenging agent.^1,2

• Increasing circulation through histamine-induced vasodilation, stimulating lymphatic circulation, inhibiting numerous clotting pathways, and functioning as a targeted diuretic that eliminates harmful blood and fluid accumulation.¹

• Stabilizing proteins (allowing them to regain lost function), neutralizing or dissolving damaged ones and scars, and preventing fibrosis.^1,2

• Promoting microtubule polymerization and hence cell growth.¹

• Neutralizing the smallest harmful microorganisms (which frequently trigger autoimmunity) by disrupting their membranes.¹

These mechanisms partly explain additional effects DMSO is repeatedly observed to create (e.g., its free radical scavenging and facilitation of DNA repair play a major role in protecting cells from otherwise lethal stressors like radiation, and its microcirculatory effects play a major role in its non-specific enhancement of immunity), while others still lack any explanation (e.g., DMSO differentiating cells, including cancer cells, or reviving dying cells^1,2).

However, once effects this broad are observed (affecting almost every part of the body), biophysical rather than biochemical means are typically needed to explain them, and I’ve hence tried to put forward those I believe best do so (e.g., to explain how DMSO produces remarkable for a wide range of complex neurological and psychiatric illnesses I recently showed how DMSO directly separates blood cells by neutralizing the factors which cause them to clump together, thereby greatly increasing critical microcirculation throughout the body).

In this article, I will attempt to show how the same biophysical effects that produce DMSO’s two most well known effects—allowing substances to travel through cell membranes without damaging them and making cells able to survive being frozen—also underlie many of its other remarkable therapeutic properties and focus on their profound implications for the peripheral nervous system.

Note: I am providing this article I’ve spent the last month working on ahead of publication as a way to sincerely thank the supporters of this newsletter.

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•Many commonly prescribed medications are given to patients despite the risks often outweighing the benefits.

•Acid-suppressing drugs are among the worst offenders, with their overuse fueled by a lack of understanding about the crucial role of stomach acid throughout the body or that acid reflux is due to too little stomach acid (as the stomach acid of digestion gives the stomach’s opening a signal to seal and not let any more food in).

•Deficient stomach acid causes many chronic health problems (e.g., macular degeneration, a myriad of autoimmune disorders such as asthma, and less overt forms of reflux that cause many common diseases of the ears, nose, and throat such as allergies, coughs, and sinusitis).

•Acid blocking medications cause a variety of severe side effects, including a 19% increased risk of death and a comparable increase in cardiac events, kidney or liver disease, numerous infections, and bone damage.

•Thankfully, many safe natural treatments can effectively address acid reflux and many of the complications of a chronic stomach acid deficiency.

In the U.S., 66% of adults are estimated to have at least one prescription, and the average person has nine filled annually. As an awake physician, one of the most depressing aspects of my work is seeing patients, especially the elderly, weighed down by numerous prescriptions that frequently do more harm than good.

For example, as I showed here, statins provide a negligible benefit (e.g., at best, taking them for five years extends one’s lifespan by 3-4 days) but create significant side effects such as severe muscle pain and cognitive impairment for 20% of users.

This tragic situation is best demonstrated by a 2007 study which showed that simply discontinuing the least necessary prescriptions resulted in a 23% reduction in the death rate and an 18.2% decrease in hospital referrals. Sadly, since the trend in medicine is always to have people on more drugs, data like this has had no effect on the practice of the overprescription of medications.

Over the years, I’ve asked dozens of holistic doctors which widely prescribed drugs they consider to be the most unnecessary and dangerous, and in addition to statins, three frequently make their list:
•NSAID painkillers (discussed further here).
•SSRI antidepressants (discussed further here).
•Stomach acid blocking PPIs (the focus of this article).

Acid Reflux

Your stomach contains acid that it uses to digest food (primarily by turning on powerful enzymes that digest protein). When the stomach is digesting food, the acid should stay inside the stomach, but sometimes, it leaks back up into the esophagus (your throat) because the muscle that seals the top of the stomach (the LES) fails to fully seal. Since stomach acid is irritating, it frequently creates an unpleasant condition known as heartburn when it refluxes into areas like the throat that are not resistant to its acidity.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a very common condition, estimated to affect 20% of adults (ranging between 18.1% to 27.8% of adults in the USA), is slightly more common in women, and those numbers have been gradually increasing globally.

In addition to overt acid reflux, another condition is silent reflux (laryngopharyngeal reflux), where minor reflux occurs without causing overt heartburn. It is often the root cause of a variety of other symptoms, such as:

•Allergies
•Asthma and reactive airway diseases
•Burning in the mouth or on the tongue
•Chronic sore throat
•Ear pressure and ear infections
•Frequently feeling like you need to clear your throat (and sometimes cough)
•Post-nasal drip
•Sensation of a painless lump in the throat
•Sinus issues

While most medical conditions are overemphasized to sell more prescriptions, silent reflux is not, and it is quite rare for me to meet an otolaryngologist (ENT) who recognizes this is the root cause of their patients' symptoms. Fortunately, silent reflux is highly responsive to lifestyle changes (e.g., not eating at night), and those measures frequently produce profound improvements for patients.

Why Stomach Acid Is Essential for Your Health

Subtle distortions frequently occur in science, creating a false conception of reality that conveniently allows a profitable industry to exist. For example, stomach acid is largely viewed as unnecessary and thus frequently possible to justify eliminating with acid suppressing medications. In reality, it has numerous vital functions:

Protein Digestion: Amino acids, the building blocks of the body, are obtained from protein. Without sufficient acid, proteins can't be properly digested, leading to significant nutritional deficiencies, impaired energy levels, mood or cognitive function, and food sensitivities from undigested foreign proteins entering the bloodstream.

Sterilizing the Stomach: Acid is a barrier to harmful microbes, preventing them from entering and infecting the digestive tract. Those with low stomach acid are thus at higher risk for severe foodborne illnesses and hospital-acquired infections.

For example, one study found that ventilated patients who received an acid blocking medication (which was not as powerful as the newer PPIs) were twice as likely to develop pneumonia and 60 percent more likely to die from hospital acquired pneumonia. Similarly, a Clostridium difficile infection is the leading cause of hospital-associated infectious diarrhea. It has a considerable impact on the length of a hospital stay and its costs—those on PPIs were found to be twice as likely to develop this condition. Furthermore, one large review of septic patients found those on PPIs were 4.3% more likely to die than those not on PPIs.
Note: the largest review that has been done so far of PPIs and COVID-19 found PPIs increased a COVID patient’s risk of dying by 77%.

Many of the issues with acid suppression are best illustrated by how they alter the normal bacterial flora of the gut. For example, to quote the manufacturer of one PPI:

Like other agents that elevate intragastric pH, omeprazole [Prilosec] administered for 14 days in healthy subjects significantly increased the intragastric concentrations of viable bacteria. The pattern of the bacterial species was unchanged from that commonly found in saliva. All changes were resolved within three days of stopping treatment.

Nutrient Absorption: Many (myself included) believe one of the primary causes of all the chronic illnesses we see today are widespread deficiencies of vital nutrients. Much of this deficiency comes from:
•Industrial agriculture (which nutritionally depletes the soil)
•Chelating herbicides such as Roundup (which sequester essential minerals like manganese)
•Food processing (which removes many vital nutrients from food)
•Impaired absorption of the nutrients that remain.

Note: manganese deficiency is a root cause of many debilitating conditions, such as hyper-mobile connective tissue disorders (which make individuals much more sensitive to environmental toxins—for example, patients with ligamentous laxity are much more vulnerable to vaccine injuries). Fortunately, with appropriate manganese supplementation,& these conditions often significantly improve.

Poor stomach acid levels hinder the absorption of critical minerals and vitamins. Beyond making individual amino acids available, certain vitamins (e.g., B12) depend upon stomach acid for absorption, and many minerals bound to plants (e.g., iron) will only separate and become absorbable in an acidic environment.

Note: this is a key reason why stomach acid deficiency is particularly problematic for vegetarians.

Digestive Signaling: Acid stimulates the release of hormones (e.g., secretin and cholecystokinin) and enzymes necessary for digestion. These signals ensure that the pancreas releases the right enzymes to continue breaking down food and that the digestive system functions efficiently. Impaired acid levels can disrupt this process, leading to issues like indigestion and floating stools.

Why would Nature expend so much metabolic energy to provide each one of us at birth (and until at least age forty) with an ample supply of stomach acid and pepsin if it weren’t really necessary for digestion?” — Jonathan Wright MD

The Problems with PPIs

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are the most powerful acid suppressing medications on the market. Initially, PPIs were meant for treating very high stomach acid levels or severe GI damage and rare debilitating diseases (e.g., Zollinger–Ellison syndrome), and their usage was limited to 4-8 weeks. However, once the heartburn market was recognized, PPIs were heavily promoted, and now over 15% of Americans take them.

Since stomach acid is critical for health, prolonged PPI use has been linked to serious health risks such as:

• Increased Mortality: Studies show a 19% increase in overall risk of death.

• Cardiac Events: A 28% increase in the risk of major cardiac events.

• Kidney and Liver Disease: Higher risk of severe kidney disease and worsened liver conditions.

• Bone Health: Increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures.

• Infections and Deficiencies: Higher risk of infections like pneumonia, nutrient absorption issues, and low magnesium levels.

• Dementia: A 33% increase in dementia risk.

• Significantly increasing the risk of macular degeneration.

Conditions Linked to Impaired Stomach Acidity

Dr. Wright gained an international reputation for his success in treating challenging chronic illnesses (e.g., macular degeneration). He found low stomach acid was one of the most common root causes of chronic illness.

Low stomach acid is especially common in autoimmune disorders. For example, research in the 1930s showed that over 80% of asthmatic children had low stomach acid and that if given the missing hydrochloric acid, many saw their asthma disappear, especially when allergens were also removed from their diets. Unfortunately, this became a forgotten side of medicine once drugs that could perpetually “manage” asthma hit the market.

In turn, Wright found with his asthmatic patients that if he normalized their stomach acid levels and administered injectable B12, chronic illnesses like asthma could be improved and often cured. Likewise, Wright was also able to draw a clear link between stomach acid deficiency and the following autoimmune conditions (as data existed to support the link and in over half of the cases he saw, low stomach acid was detected):

Note: the bolded conditions are known to be linked to an HLA genetic factor but nonetheless responded to Wright’s protocol, suggesting not only genetics but also environmental factors must be considered in chronic disease. This is very similar to the situation with autism, where many different genetic factors have been partially linked to it, and all of those factors share the common thread of increasing the likelihood that an environmental toxin will permanently damage the body. Thus in both cases, we have a myriad of chronic conditions that are difficult to explain (let alone treat) unless they are each viewed as the manifestation of a few key pathologic processes that must be addressed.

Wright also noted other health issues linked to low stomach acid, such as digestive problems, skin disorders, accelerated aging, depression, and even stomach cancer.

In fact, Wright predicted that proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), which reduce stomach acid, would increase stomach cancer rates. Recent studies have confirmed this, showing that PPIs can nearly double the risk of developing stomach cancer (e.g., a meta-analysis reviewing millions of people found a 1.8X increase).

What Causes Acid Reflux?

So far, I’ve tried to make the case that acid reflux is tied to a stomach acid deficiency (something Wright found in over 90% of the thousands of tests his clinic performed), and more importantly, that the presence of reflux should serve as a warning of stomach acid deficiency and that critical parts of your health may also be compromised. Sadly, doctors always assume there is too much acid in the stomach when seeing a patient with GERD rather than measuring the stomach acid levels prior to beginning an acid reducing regimen (e.g., in 30 years of practice, Wright never saw a patient who ever had their stomach acid directly measured by another doctor, regardless of how other many tests their previous doctors had performed to evaluate their GI tract).

All of this comes about because of an important fact that is rarely taught in medical school. The lower esophageal sphincter is pH sensitive and only closes once sufficient acidity is present in the stomach (which makes sense since otherwise food would not be able to get to the stomach in the first place, but once it’s there and being digested, you need a way to keep it from getting back into the throat).

Since GERD is so common, that suggests there is also a widespread deficiency in stomach (hydrochloric) acid. Presently, I believe a few factors are responsible:

• Aging: Stomach acid production decreases with age, particularly after 60. This decline is linked to various health issues, making amino acid and B-12 supplementation crucial for older adults. The increasing prevalence of GERD with age suggests that doctors often misattribute symptoms to excess acid rather than considering a deficiency.

Note: The likelihood of GERD is known to increase with age, which again makes it remarkable that so few doctors consider the possibility that excess acid in the stomach is not the cause of their patient’s symptoms.

• Diet: Stomach acid requires both hydrogen and chloride, which are less present in modern diets. Proper supplementation of these elements can significantly improve gastrointestinal function.

• Autoimmune Conditions: These can attack the stomach's acid-producing cells, reducing acid levels.

• H. Pylori Infections: This bacterium is known to decrease stomach acid production.

• Energy Demands: Producing stomach acid is energy-intensive. Mitochondrial dysfunction, common in chronic illnesses, may contribute to declining acid levels.

• Medications: Acid-suppressing drugs naturally reduce stomach acid levels, exacerbating the problem.

However, stomach acid deficiency isn't the only cause of acid reflux:

Physical Pressure: Excess pressure on the stomach, such as from a hiatal hernia, can force the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) to open, leading to reflux. This condition is estimated to affect 55%-60% of people over 50.

Medications and Foods: many medications, particularly ones used to relax muscles like the bronchodilators used to “treat” asthma, certain blood pressure medications (e.g, calcium channel blockers) along with valium, nitroglycerine, and opioids, all relax the LES and thereby allow stomach contents to leak through it.

Additionally, Wright found that some foods, including fats, chocolate, coffee, other caffeinated beverages, mints (especially peppermint and spearmint), sugar, onions, and some alcoholic beverages, can weaken the LES.

Stomach Irritants: Acidic foods, spicy foods, carbonated beverages, and coffee can irritate the stomach and trigger reflux. Patients with lectin sensitivities should avoid high-lectin foods.

Spicy Foods: While spicy and bitter foods can stimulate stomach acid secretion and protect against parasites, they can also irritate inflamed tissues and worsen GERD symptoms in severe cases.

While many of these foods are on the list of items to avoid if you have GERD, Wright uniquely categorized foods into those that weaken the LES versus those that irritate the stomach, providing a more nuanced approach to managing GERD.

Note: one of the most insidious things about this is that PPIs create a dependency for the user as once they begin to stop using them, some stomach acid will return (which is enough to irritate the esophagus but not enough to signal to the LES to close), leading to reflux GERD and hence forcing the patients to resume the PPI to alleviate their symptoms. Sadly this dependency is a common theme in the most commercially successful pharmaceuticals. For example, benzodiazepines were only meant to be used for the short term management of anxiety because they are highly addictive. Still, since they are frequently prescribed indefinitely to patients, many cannot stop using them due to the severe anxiety provoking withdrawals they produce.

Managing Stomach Acidity

Most of the natural approaches for treating GERD and the conditions relating to deficient stomach acidity normally seek to do one or more of the following:

•Reduce the pressure on the stomach.
•Remove stomach irritating foods from the diet.
•Restore the tone of the LES.
•Restore hydrochloric acid production.
•Heal damaged areas of the GI tract (e.g., an ulcer) without using acid suppressing medications.
•Support normal digestive function in tandem with increasing stomach acidity.

Some of these approaches are relatively straightforward and have been mentioned throughout the article. Others are commonly done within medicine (e.g., a fundoplication wraps the top part of the stomach around the esophagus thereby tightening the LES and reducing how much acid can exit back into the esophagus—but unfortunately has a variety of side effects). Sadly, however, patients are rarely informed of the natural ways to treat acid reflux, despite them being quite feasible to implement at home.

For example, recently Senator Ron Johnson shared that after learning about this here, he was able to finally cure his longstanding acid reflux.

Senator Johnson’s experience hence illustrates how widespread this issue is, and more importantly, that even for Senators (who should have access to the best possible medical care), simple natural cures remain elusive within the conventional paradigm.

Conclusion

Despite my extensive understanding of the politics behind medicine, I still find it hard to accept that medical science has largely ignored the critical role of stomach acid. This situation highlights how modern medicine often prioritizes sales over scientific evidence.

Fortunately, with the patents for PPIs now expiring, the financial incentive to overlook their harms has diminished. As a result, the medical community is finally starting to acknowledge the risks associated with these drugs. In parallel, due to the disastrous COVID-19 response, we have entered a new political climate where people are much more skeptical of previously unchallenged marketing dogmas like the great stomach acid scam now and as I’ve seen firsthand, millions are instead searching for the truth. Getting to this point has taken decades of work by everyone, and I sincerely thank each of you for what you’ve done to bring the forgotten sides of medicine to the public’s attention.

Author's note: This is an abbreviated version of a full-length article that takes a deeper look into the above details (e.g., other dangers of PPIs, the methods for naturally treating acid reflux or stomach acid deficiency, and how these protocols were used for a myriad of conditions such as macular degeneration). For the entire read with much more specific details and sources, please click here.

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• Scientific research has provided immense benefit to society, but as its success earned it power, prestige and enormous financing, incentives shifted from advancing humanity to protecting the status quo and ensuring vast profits for the pharmaceutical industry.

• We spend more and more on science each year, yet the problems we’ve tasked it with solving remain unsolved, even when solutions already exist. COVID-19 made this painfully clear: dozens of treatments existed for the disease, but rather than utilize them, the medical establishment treated the infection as “incurable” and used that framing to justify a series of counterproductive policies which devastated the economy and left us with a death toll well over a hundred times greater than the poorest nations that did nothing at all.

• Central to maintaining this orthodoxy is the belief that large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) must serve as the primary arbiter of scientific truth while other viable and proven research approaches are discarded. While RCTs are sometimes immensely helpful, their data often has minimal clinical relevance to patients yet their dominance displaces all the scientific data which does.

• Because large RCTs cost tens of millions of dollars, only a handful of parties can afford to conduct them, which means they are typically done to bring profitable products to market rather than to advance health. Worse, since so much money rides on each trial, perverse incentives always exist to doctor the results so a positive outcome is guaranteed.

• Over the years, a robust system of ways to rig trials has emerged, with tactics that exaggerate or fabricate benefits while downplaying or erasing harms. Despite being well recognized, these tactics persist because the regulators and medical journals who depend on the status quo turn a blind eye.

• This article provides a concise summary of how trials are routinely rigged, gives you the resources to spot this manipulation and protect yourself from it, and highlights the straightforward solutions that could bring science back to something that prioritizes advancing humanity.

Every medical system in history has been great at addressing certain issues, so-so at others (requiring patients with those issues to see a highly talented practitioner for a successful resolution) and unable to address the rest. For this reason, I’ve long believed the “best” approach to practicing medicine is to develop an in-depth understanding of 1-3 medical systems, and then once you are aware of the therapeutic gaps in your tool box, to recognize when another system has something which can address one of those gaps and fold those approaches into your framework.

In contrast, our society has been conditioned to believe that modern biomedical medicine is the one true system of medicine and that through a robust scientific process, has solved all the previous problems and mishaps which characterized its predecessors (so if any other modality wishes to be used in medical practice it must prove itself by the standards modern medicine has established). However, while that’s a nice-sounding idea, modern medicine is still bound to the same laws which dictate every other medical system, and as such, the reality in healthcare is:

•Conventional medical care is very good at addressing many issues, to the point we take for granted those issues are easily fixable (when for much of history they were not).

•Conventional medicine offers mediocre, less than satisfactory, or highly inconsistent results for many medical conditions large numbers of people suffer from along with it proclaiming that for many illnesses “nothing can be done.”

•A variety of alternative therapies exist which can satisfactorily address many of the areas where conventional medicine fails, but rather than be embraced, they are widely disparaged as pseudoscience and quackery (which has resulted in a thriving alternative medical field that has persisted in the United States despite immense efforts to stamp it out).

To illustrate this point, I’ve focused on DMSO in this newsletter as it has a vast body of literature supporting its safe use for a myriad of challenging conditions. More importantly, due to how dramatic its efficacy is for many “incurable” conditions, I’ve now had thousands of readers submit (currently 6500) almost unbelievable testimonials showing DMSO rapidly cured their ailments (which I have been slowly compiling in articles specific to those ailments).

All of that raises an obvious question; how could a therapy like this remain completely unknown (particularly since in DMSO’s case, scientists, legislators and the public fought the FDA for decades for DMSO to be recognized), especially since the number one concern in healthcare for decades has been reining in its ever-increasing costs?

Note: the reason I continue to emphasize DMSO is that it has been one of the most efficient ways to meet the goals of this newsletter—helping people and providing clear proof of healthcare corruption. In practice, I use many other suppressed modalities that I would like to cover here, but as my time is limited and these articles take a lot of work to write, I have to prioritize where the effort will go the furthest rather than follow my personal interests (which I aim to cover in the future).

RCT Fundamentalism

In a recent article, I put forward the case that there is a very poor cost-to-benefit ratio from the existing clinical trial framework.

The current devotion to randomized controlled trials essentially resulted from:

1. The FDA interpreting a 1962 Law (designed to prevent the next thalidomide) which stated The H.H.S. Secretary could block any drug from being marketed if it had a lack of “well-controlled investigations” to mean that no drug could be approved for use in the United States unless it had large randomized double-blind trials (RCTs) demonstrating its efficacy (excluding cases where the FDA felt like partially waiving that requirement).

2. Reformers in the 1990s seeking to address medicine’s longstanding problem with dogmatic and counterproductive ideas persisting—which was done by replacing the existing status quo of deferring to experts with one where medical decisions should be dictated by “the best available evidence,” “individual clinical expertise” and “the patient’s unique values and circumstances.” Sadly, this was rapidly corrupted and switched to only prioritizing “the best available evidence” (e.g., vaccine mandates violate “patient values”) and “the best available evidence” being defined as evidence which met a statutory threshold (large RCTs and “expert” endorsement) rather than the best evidence currently existing on a topic.

Because of this, situations would frequently be encountered where it was clear there was an issue (e.g., a pharmaceutical or vaccine continually injuring someone) or something different needed to be done (e.g., DMSO being used for a debilitating, costly and incurable illness) but those alternative approaches would be blocked because there was no robust RCT supporting their use (and none would ever be done).
Note: DMSO is nearly impossible to conduct a blinded trial on because it produces immediate benefits no other therapy will produce, often causes brief skin irritation or a characteristic odor and will improve areas of the body besides where it was applied. As such, the FDA relentlessly insisted you could not claim the “non-blinded” trials demonstrating DMSO’s efficacy actually constituted proof it worked.

All of this, in turn, results from the fact RCTs have a few critical features most people are not aware of.

First, they are excellent at identifying small data signals which would be nearly impossible for individual practitioners to recognize (e.g., a 3% increase in the risk of a heart attack). This is extremely valuable when there is ambiguity in a routine clinical decision that is regularly made on a large basis each day (as those small differences rapidly add up) or for identifying serious rare side effects from a therapy. However, drug benefits detected in this manner often have very little relevance to routine medical care because they are so small most patients will experience no real benefit from those drugs (and hence why many patients have concluded its a waste of time to visit the doctor for most issues).

Second, while RCTs excel at evaluating pharmaceuticals delivered in standardized doses, they have a fundamental design mismatch with many non-drug therapies. These therapies are often highly individualized and context-dependent, heavily reliant on practitioner skill and the therapeutic alliance, difficult or impossible to blind effectively (with sham controls often proving non-inert), and capable of producing large, rapid, or multifaceted effects that do not align with the ‘small signal’ statistical methods RCTs are optimized to detect in large, homogeneous populations. Moreover, they often rest on holistic diagnostic frameworks and therapeutic philosophies that clash with the reductionist assumptions (and hence the patient allocation and stratification) of the RCT paradigm and success in these systems is frequently defined by outcomes (such as shifts in vitality) that cannot be meaningfully quantified or prioritized within the RCT model. As a result, promising therapies that fall outside the ‘one pill, one disease’ framework are perpetually marginalized, not necessarily because they lack efficacy, but because they cannot readily produce the specific form of evidence the RCT paradigm was designed to generate.
Note: unlike the other medical systems created throughout history, modern medicine does not have a concept of “vitality” or an innate healing force within the body (which I believe underlies why it performs poorly for chronic illnesses).

Third, the placebo effect, combined with the bias introduced when clinical trial observers know a patient is receiving treatment, will make a therapy appear more effective than it actually is. However, what most people do not know is that placebo effect is modest (giving an additional 30-60% improvement) and primarily seen in subjective symptoms (e.g., mood or pain) rather than objective biological shifts (e.g., blood sugar or a tumor size). Likewise, a detailed review found unblinded observers overestimate subjective patient improvements by roughly 36%. This means that while eliminating these biases with RCTs is helpful, it is not always essential.

Fourth, large RCTs are extremely expensive to conduct (typically in the tens of millions of dollars). This introduces three major problems:

•It is only possible for pharmaceutical companies, national governments, and massive NGOs (e.g., The Gates Foundation) to conduct them. Because of this, many topics which should be researched are simply “off-limits” and never researched (e.g., because the tiny amount of money which can be made from an off-patent therapy does not justify a far more costly clinical trial or because they could produce results which threaten a profitable product).

•Because the clinical trials cost so much money to fund, it creates a natural incentive to doctor their results so that a positive outcome can be produced that justifies the massive investment which went into them.

•Because so much money exists in the clinical research field, so many people are invested in the current status quo that they will collectively defend its most egregious abuses while simultaneously reflexively attacking any competing model that challenges their authority over what constitutes valid evidence. Likewise, most biomedical researchers will not pursue controversial topics because producing results that challenge the status quo is economic suicide, cutting them off from the grants they depend on (a tactic Fauci weaponized to silence his critics and hijack science) or any opportunities for the other career path, pharmaceutical industry employment.

In addition to America having poor health outcomes despite vast spending on research and medical care (we spend by far the most but have the worst healthcare amongst the affluent nations), three data points directly dispel the value of RCT fundamentalism.

First, a definitive 2017 Cochrane review found that industry-sponsored drug studies were 34% more likely to report favorable overall conclusions than non-industry-sponsored studies.
Note: other studies have found higher percentages (e.g., 300%), but even at 34%, this means the bias effectively outweighs what these costly studies counteract by addressing the placebo effect.

Second, a definitive 2014 Cochrane Review found that smaller unblinded observational trials typically yielded the same results as large RCTs—which I suspect was due to the fact observational trials are typically only done when the magnitude of an effect is large enough for doctors to notice it (and hence for it to be clinically relevant). This is a critical review, as unlike large RCTs, smaller observational trials are affordable enough that anyone can conduct them, thereby making it possible to break the pharmaceutical industry’s monopolization of medical “truth.”
Note: institutional review processes that were designed to protect research subjects have increasingly become gatekeepers of orthodoxy, making it nearly impossible to obtain approval for even simple human studies on anything deemed controversial (which was incredibly frustrating for me and many others to deal with). This is why so much of the compelling research on therapies like DMSO comes from an era before these barriers existed or from countries where they still don’t.

Third, despite using the best tools science had to offer, spending far more than any other country, and imposing draconian health measures which have destroyed public trust in medicine, the US nonetheless had some of the worst COVID-19 outcomes.

Put differently, many African countries which did virtually nothing for COVID (as they could not afford to) had between a 10-20 per million persons death rate from COVID, whereas the United States recorded 3,625 deaths per million and, beyond its standard medical expenditures, spent roughly $5 trillion in direct appropriations, plus far more in indirect costs from experimental lockdowns and vaccine injuries, triggering a wave of inflation that reached approximately 30% over the last seven years, with housing prices surging 50-60%. This produced the greatest wealth transfer in history to the top 1%, hollowed out the middle class, priced an entire generation out of home ownership, and reduced daily life for millions of Americans into a struggle to simply get by.

Note: these estimates are likely conservative (as statistics are always manipulated to provide politically beneficial economic news). A more robust analysis (the red line) concluded that since 2019, the US has a 5-12% loss in GDP, 1 in 4 white collar workers has had no raise, and the dollar has had a 40-50% loss of purchasing power.

That’s appalling, particularly since all of it could have been prevented if effective treatments had existed for COVID-19 (e.g., ICU doctors I spoke to in the early days of the pandemic who were being overloaded with COVID-19 all felt the single most important thing to do was create some type of viable early outpatient COVID-19 treatment). However, despite many effective treatments being developed (e.g., in my previous article, I highlighted the simplest and most widely available one, home upper airway disinfection) the standard of care remained “take Tylenol or Ibuprofen [which often made things worse] and come back to the hospital if you can’t breathe.”

Because of this, one group (c19early.org) collaborated to synthesize all the existing data on COVID-19 treatments so an alternative to the government guideline could be available. When I saw one of their charts synthesizing all the available COVID-19 research, a depressing pattern immediately jumped out to me, so I marked the chart up to highlight it:

Essentially, what this showed is that there was no correlation between a treatment’s efficacy and if it ended up in treatment guidelines. Rather, it was primarily a result of how profitable the therapy was (presumably because that propelled the lobbying necessary to get it approved), and more remarkably, the therapies developed by our robust clinical trial process were amongst the worst options available, which in part was due to the fact the committee which created America’s guidelines was selected by Fauci (who’d previously stonewalled every efficacious therapy for AIDS to push AZT through) and nearly everyone Fauci put on it had previously taken money from remdesivir’s manufacturer.

Note: in the previous article here, I documented how every year since 1976, the government has hyped a viral pandemic and has now funneled billions upon billions into proprietary countermeasures that failed—which has persisted because no one is ever held accountable for any of it. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of that enterprise.

In short, RCTs are an incredibly useful tool for deducing truth, but the moment you rely upon them as the only tool for discerning truth and guiding clinical decisions, many medical problems will rapidly become unsolvable. Because of this, anyone trying to unravel a medical puzzle or find out how to best address a medical ailment has to adopt an incredibly discerning eye to know what can and can’t be trusted, and given how frustrating it has been for me to figure out how to do that, I feel it’s just completely unfair for that burden to be put onto people who need answers. No one should need decades of experience untangling fact from fiction in the scientific literature just because the existing framework can’t be relied upon to ensure what gets published is actually true or the thing that’s actually relevant to the situation at hand.

Research Fraud

Since research is time consuming and costly to do, two conflicting priorities must always be navigated, getting accurate results and making the research worthwhile to do—which frequently equates to it producing the results its sponsors need. Because of this, a “cottage industry” has emerged of ways to doctor data so that a study’s conclusion will achieve the desired outcome, and because of this, once you know how to spot these tactics, you will see them employed again and again throughout the scientific literature.

Likewise, this issue extends beyond science. For example, recently I dissected a political poll which was successfully used to undermine MAHA’s vaccine safety agenda as it showed vaccine safety reforms were so unpopular that candidates who broached them would rapidly lose their midterm elections, hence making the only rational option for the White House be to completely end any critical statements or positions on immunization until after the midterms.

However, what makes this story remarkable is that the poll stood in stark contrast to every other data set, as dozens of polls and recent elections showed that vaccine safety reforms were extremely popular with voters and it was actually the candidates who tried to sabotage RFK’s efforts who experienced disastrous elections. Nonetheless, that single poll which flew in the face of everything else (and had numerous methodological issues which would normally make it inadmissible) was the only one that was widely promoted by the media.

When the actual poll was dissected, it was clear the poll was written to prompt respondents (including those with reservations about vaccines) to give responses which then could be interpreted as “pro-vaccine” and through linguistic tricks, to push them to reject candidates who promoted vaccine safety. More remarkably, a secret poll was recently leaked that was conducted by the same pollster immediately prior to the public poll. The private poll, like every other one, found overwhelming electoral support for vaccine safety and freedom of choice. In turn, when the public and private ones were compared, it was very clear the language in the original was carefully altered so that a completely different response could be elicited. In short, this means that the public poll was not conducted to determine how the electorate felt about vaccines, but rather function as an advocacy tool that created the impression voters overwhelmingly rejected vaccine safety initiatives—a situation which sadly also characterizes many clinical trials (as they also prioritize arriving at a foregone conclusion).

Note: shortly after that article was published, the White House issued a remarkable executive order demonstrating a commitment to pivot back to immediately addressing the vaccine safety issue.

In addition to the slim chance that exposing the poll could change the course of the White House, I felt all of this was important to highlight for three reasons:

1. It showed how consequential doctored research can be, and that in many cases contrary to what you would expect, no robust way exists to correct it (as until we all fought it, that blatantly biased poll which was full of red flags reversed what a large portion of the electorate had vote for).

2. Once examined, it was very easy to see why its methodological flaws made it a "junk poll” that should never be taken seriously (much in the same way its results were so far off from every other poll that the probability it accurately represented voter sentiments was close to zero).

3. Some of the strategies used there were identical to those used to doctor scientific research (e.g., preventing inconvenient data points from entering the scientific literature and using early trials to beta test how to structure the pivotal ones so that unwanted data will not appear in them).

Unfortunately, the data manipulation seen in polling is crude and trivial compared to what routinely occurs in clinical trials, where the financial stakes are orders of magnitude greater and, unlike elections, no immediate real-world outcome exists to unmask the deception.

Fortunately, a few doctors have published pivotal books exposing the mechanics of what goes on behind the scenes of pharmaceutical research:

•Former NEJM editor-in-chief Marcia Angell in 2004 (which played a pivotal role in first exposing these tactics)

•Ben Goldacre in 2014

•Peter C. Gøtzsche in 2013 (who wrote the densest book which best demonstrates how the pharmaceutical industry operates similarly to an organized crime organization) along with his 2015 book which exposed the rampant fraud throughout psychiatry.

•Malcolm Kendrick in 2015 (whose book I most commonly recommend to patients wishing to better understand the subject)

Likewise, John Ioannidis famously showed in his 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” that in many fields of medicine, the majority (often >50%) of published research claims are likely false due to bias, small samples, and perverse incentives (a problem that is especially severe for industry-funded studies).

Since a concise compiled list of the depressing tactics utilized to doctor research, to the best of my knowledge, does not exist online (or in any medical school curriculum), I decided to do my best to put together a (likely incomplete) list of the common tactics the industry utilizes along with a few examples of some. As books could be written on each of the ones I will discuss in this article (many of which are quite egregious—such as those which intentionally harm patients to inflate a drug’s benefits), for those wishing to learn more than what I share here, consider reading the above books (particularly Kendrick’s or Gøtzsche’s).

How to Rig a Trial

Since the risks and benefits of a therapy are determined by it having a “statistically significant” improvement from the comparison group (e.g., those receiving placebo), trials are typically gamed by:

•Making the placebo group do worse, so that by comparison to that artificial baseline, the treatment appears better than it is.

•Finding ways to inflate the positive effects reported for the treatment and eliminate the negative ones.

•Finding ways to cast the results obtained in a more positive light and creatively downplay the negative ones.

•Sifting through the random statistical variation inherent in any large trial to identify the specific analytical permutations where a “benefit” spontaneously appears, then presenting those selected findings as the definitive result.

•Ensuring that almost everyone only sees the curated presentation of the trial data which makes the drug look as good as possible.

Note: much of this is analogous to flipping lots of coins, but only showing the cases where it came up heads and using that to claim the coin always comes up heads.

Before we go further, I have to emphasize, what I’m describing is not complicated and pretty obvious fraud to anyone who takes a moment to think about it—but nonetheless the regulators completely tolerate it, which I believe is a consequence of us having a “too big to fail” type situation with clinical research where so much money is spent on it and so many people are dependent upon the system, except for the occasional dissident like the doctors I mentioned above, they can’t afford to question it.

Underscoring this, the FDA (the agency responsible for catching trial manipulation), is itself financially dependent on the industry it regulates. Industry user fees now account for nearly 51% of the FDA's total budget (up from roughly 20% in 2007), with pharmaceutical user fees specifically funding 77% of the prescription drug review program. The personnel situation is equally compromised: a 2024 BMJ investigation found that nine of the FDA's last ten commissioners went on to work for or sit on the board of a pharmaceutical company, and a follow-up investigation found every commissioner since 2000 had gone to industry. More broadly, a 2023 study of 766 HHS political appointees found that 38% of FDA appointees exited to private industry (with the CDC and CMS being even higher, at 53-54%). Among the rank and file, a 2016 BMJ study found that 57% of FDA hematology-oncology drug reviewers who left the agency went to work for or consult with the pharmaceutical industry, and a 2018 Science investigation found that 11 of 16 FDA medical examiners who left after working on drug approvals took jobs with the very companies they had recently regulated. Likewise, in the NIH, FOIA litigation revealed that over $2.685 billion in royalty payments flowed from pharmaceutical companies to NIH institutes and scientists between 2010 and 2023 (with over $1 billion of that marked for individual inventors), data Fauci and the NIH had fought to keep hidden for decades until a federal court compelled its release (discussed further here). Not surprisingly, honest scientists who have tried to push back from within have been marginalized, surveilled and driven out: a FDA safety researcher was ostracized by management after his 2004 Senate testimony exposing the Vioxx catastrophe, a group of nine FDA scientists wrote to President Obama that the agency had "ordered, intimidated, and coerced" them to alter their scientific conclusions, and FDA drug reviewer Ronald Kavanagh reported a systematic culture of intimidation and suppression of safety findings. In short, the regulators tasked with holding clinical trials accountable are funded by the companies conducting them, staffed by people whose next career move depends on staying in those companies' good graces, personally enriched by the products they oversee, and hostile to anyone within their ranks who tries to change any of it.
Note: similar massive conflicts of interest have also been documented within the CDC (detailed here).

Lastly, there are likely other forms of data manipulation besides those described here. While some of these approaches are apparent from reading a journal article, because the pharmaceutical industry is allowed to keep their trial data private, many others were only discovered because lawsuits forced pharmaceutical companies to reveal their internal trial records (which likely still downplayed what actually occurred in trial participants) or trial participants and investigators testified to the malfeasance in the trials (which is extraordinarily rare). As such, it is fair to assume the known examples I cite represent the tip of the iceberg and that the same things have been done in various combinations with many other pharmaceuticals that have not received as much scrutiny.

I will now briefly review some of the most commonly recognized ways trials are doctored. Many of these will leave you jaw dropped, but I must again emphasize are standard practice because regulators, medical journals and peer reviewers tolerate them.

Rigging the Trial Design

• Comparator rigging — Testing against placebo rather than the best existing treatment, or handicapping the comparator through incorrect dosing, withholding supportive care, mismatched (incorrect) administration, or choosing an outdated or inferior comparator all inflate a tested drug’s benefit. Non-inferiority margins can be set generously so a “me-too” drug passes as “equally effective” to an existing treatment without demonstrating any real advantage. In psychiatry, head-to-head trials routinely overdose older drugs (e.g., haloperidol) to make newer antipsychotics appear safer.^1,2,3,4

• Reactogenic or “spiked” placebos — Using a control (“placebo”) substance that itself causes adverse effects, masking drug-specific harms by equalizing side effects across all trial groups. In vaccine trials, either an existing vaccine or aluminum adjuvant is typically used as the “placebo,” which effectively hides many of the severe complications they cause (with Gardasil’s trials being a notoriously egregious abuse of a “fauxebo”). This occasionally also occurs in drug trials (e.g., Tamiflu’s placebo causes the same GI symptoms Tamiflu caused^1,2).

• Cherry-picking participants — Using overly restrictive criteria to exclude patients likely to experience side effects, while simultaneously finding ways to pre-select those most likely to respond (e.g., up to 90% of potential trial participants can be excluded—guaranteeing completely different results once the drug enters the market and actual patients start taking it).^1,2,3 In the riskiest phase I safety trials, a parallel problem exists as pharmaceutical companies rely upon a subculture of “professional guinea pigs” (often unemployed, not legally in the country, or economically desperate) who cycle through multiple trials for pay, lying about medical histories and ignoring the required washout periods between trials (that are needed to accurately calculate drug safety and efficacy), producing non-representative safety data.^1,2

• Structural priming / run-in periods — Weeding out patients who respond poorly to the drug or well to placebo before randomization begins, thereby inflating the apparent drug-placebo difference and hiding many of the injuries that will be seen once the drug enters the market. Many psychiatric trials also enroll patients already taking similar drugs, ensuring only pre-tolerant subjects enter randomization.^1,2

• Surrogate endpoints — Because it takes a while for many significant improvements in health to occur, things which are believed to lead to a desired improvement are measured instead (e.g., cholesterol, tumor size, blood pressure, frequency of a symptom, performance on a physical test, being tumor free for a few years, having an antibody response to a vaccine) despite often not leading to the desired outcome. Likewise, psychiatric trials rely heavily on subjective symptom scales rather than functional recovery, suicide prevention, or quality of life — and then spin 1–2 point (inconsequential) differences on these scales as clinically meaningful.^1,2,3,4

  Note: the abuse of surrogate endpoints is one reason why it is so important to prioritize studies that found a difference in deaths between the experimental and placebo groups as this is the one metric which cannot be gamed.

• Imperfect blinding — Trials being unblinded is a frequent issue (especially with more toxic drugs with easy to identify side effects), which in turn leads to investigators underreporting treatment failures or side effects (e.g., this was a massive problem in the COVID vaccine trials and likely facilitated much of their “benefit” as many vaccine recipients with COVID like symptoms were not PCR tested for COVID—with an FDA review acknowledging 477 trial participants with COVID symptoms were never swabbed). Even in the better trials, subtle differences in capsule appearance, taste, or side-effect profiles compromise double-blinding. Psychiatric drugs are particularly vulnerable: conspicuous side effects (akathisia, sedation, sexual dysfunction) allow patients and clinicians to guess allocation, and “activated” (energized) patients on the trial drug tend to stay in trials longer than placebo patients.^1,2,3

• Use of concomitant medications to mask harms — In psychiatric trials, companies routinely encourage investigators to co-prescribe benzodiazepines (or other sedatives) to suppress akathisia, agitation, and violent reactions caused by the trial drug. This hides drug-specific adverse effects (making the tested drug appear safer), while also confounding efficacy results because benzodiazepines themselves can improve anxiety and depression symptoms. Gøtzsche notes this practice was allowed in the majority of antidepressant trials (e.g., 84% in some analyses) and represents a major design flaw that underestimates harms such as suicide and homicide.¹

• Offshoring — Running trials in developing countries (or with economically disadvantaged populations) not only lowers costs but leads to laxer oversight (which allows greater trial manipulation and data alteration) hence inflating drug benefits.^1,2

• Non-standard measurement thresholds — Choosing unconventional cutoffs to manufacture a favorable result. In one voriconazole trial, kidney toxicity was reported using a 1.5-fold creatinine increase rather than the standard 2-fold; at the standard threshold, the difference between drugs disappeared entirely.¹

Manipulating the Data Mid-Stream

• Truncating observation — Ending data collection before adverse trends emerge. The CLASS celecoxib trial published only 6 months of data from 12–15 month trials because the drug’s advantage disappeared with the full dataset. In the VIGOR trial, Merck used an earlier cutoff for cardiovascular events than for GI events without disclosure. The Pfizer COVID vaccine publication relied on roughly two months of post-dose safety data from a trial designed for two-year follow-up. Psychiatric trials are typically kept to 4–8 weeks, thereby preventing long-term harms from appearing in the data (hence facilitating gaslighting of actual patients who experience these effects).^1,2,3

• Stopping trials early — Halting a trial when interim results happen to look favorable, which exaggerates effects by roughly a quarter.^1,2 (as with drugs that have smaller benefits, random statistical variations can allow them to temporarily achieve a positive result, making it prudent to end the trial before it disappears). The Pfizer’s 95% efficacy figure came from an interim analysis after 170 cases; the high interim result led to emergency authorization, after which placebo recipients were vaccinated (as not doing so was deemed “unethical”) ensuring long-term blinded safety data which could have assessed the harms of the COVID vaccine would never exist. In 73% of protocols examined in one review,¹ sponsors had the right to stop the trial at any time for any reason.^1,2,3

• Pre-injuring the placebo arm — Adding adverse events from pre-randomization washout periods (where things like significant SSRI withdrawals occur) to the placebo group but not the drug group (which was documented for paroxetine, sertraline, and fluoxetine trials). In psychiatric maintenance trials, a more systematic version occurs: patients stabilized on a drug are randomized to continue or switch to placebo, but the switch is done via cold-turkey discontinuation (producing withdrawals and severe symptoms such as rebound psychosis, rebound depression, akathisia) that are then counted as “relapse,” making the drug appear essential for long-term use and justifying lifelong treatment. Gøtzsche understandably views that as abhorrent and cites it as the single most consequential deception in psychiatry.^1,2

• Biased event adjudication — Ambiguous trial data (e.g., was an end point successfully met or was an injury that occurred caused by the drug) is traditionally ruled upon by an independent (and ideally blinded) committee. Since sponsors decide what gets adjudicated, typically they chose the results they want changed and in three major cardiovascular trials, published adjudicated results all favored the sponsor’s drug versus what study site investigators originally reported.¹

• Sponsor access to unblinded data — In 73% of protocols examined, sponsors (conveniently) had potential control over the trial while it was running through interim analyses or data monitoring committee participation.¹,²

• Incentivized underreporting of adverse events — Beyond sponsor-level suppression, subjects themselves hide side effects to remain enrolled and collect payment (plus trial sites penalize dropouts) hiding those injuries from the dataset. Compounding this, many trials only report adverse events exceeding a 5–10% threshold (hence erasing many severe reactions). Likewise, since “pre-existing” illnesses are used to account for many reactions which occur from many psychiatric medications, studies which could settle this with healthy volunteers are routinely suppressed^1,2 (e.g., one found SSRIs caused akathisia and suicidality in people with no psychiatric illness).

• Outright data fabrication — Rare but documented (e.g., Merck Vioxx death reclassifications^1,2). Other examples include fabricating patient records, altering dates and eligibility and inventing trial participants.^1,2

  Note: in theory, it would be much easier to simple fabricate data than go through all the games described here. However, as far as we know, that is much rarer than the “soft” fraud routinely used, in part because real penalties exist for fabricating data (which to some extent is monitored for), and in part because “soft” fraud is nearly always enough to accomplish everything the industry needs. However, it is well-recognized outright data fabrication is significantly more common in India and China.^1,2,3,4

Gaming the Analysis

• Relative vs. absolute risk framing — If something (e.g., never leaving the house during the summer to avoid being hit by lightning) reduces the risk of a bad outcome from a 2 in a 100,000 risk to a 1 in 100,000 risk, that translates to 0.001% reduction in your risk (making it hard to justify giving up your entire summer to slightly reduce your likelihood of being hit by lightning). However, if you instead compare 2:100,000 to 1:100,000, it now equates to a 50% reduction and hence a “big deal.” Because of this, pharmaceutical companies typically present favorable data as relative improvements (to massively inflate tiny drug benefits) while simultaneously presenting adverse reactions as absolute risks to shrink and minimize them. This is by far the most common tactic the pharmaceutical industry uses to mislead the public (e.g., in the Pfizer trial, needing to vaccinate 119 people to prevent one non-severe case of COVID was framed as the vaccine miraculously being “95% effective”) and because of how effective it is at selling junk, is also commonly used outside of medicine.^1,2,3

• Outcome switching — Changing what a trial measures after the data has been collected. One review found 63% of published trials altered at least one primary outcome from protocol, 33% introduced an entirely new one, and none acknowledged the change.^1,2 In the Pfizer COVID vaccine trial, the criteria for evaluating severe COVID was quietly shifted from after the second dose (used for the primary efficacy endpoint) to seven days after the first, pulling five additional severe placebo cases into the analysis window (a change buried in the appendix)—after with a reduction of severe COVID eventually becoming the primary basis for pushing the vaccine (as all other benefits failed to materialize once it hit the market). Because there is so much random variation in any large trial, there will always be small clinical benefits that spontaneously emerge in one trial that would never be seen again were the trial to be replicated. This is why seeing the benefit researchers expected to see emerge (what was in the original trial protocol) carries so much more weight than whatever unexpected minor benefit happened to appear once the trial was conducted.
  Note: analogously, since it is possible to interpret current political events in so many different ways, I prioritize listening to the commentators who provide frameworks which correctly predict future events.

• Subgroup fishing and p-hacking — When the primary analysis produces no results, industry will often slice data into narrower subgroups or analyze it multiple ways until they find something (where due to random variation) the threshold for statistical significance (a p value less than 0.05) is met. The CLASS trial involved at least 34 post-hoc subgroup analyses not in the original protocol. Phase III trials by smaller sponsors frequently show a suspicious clustering of results just past the p<0.05 threshold. The STAR*D depression “mega-trial” is an extreme example: the claimed 67% cumulative remission rate relied on sequential reanalysis of progressively smaller, non-randomized subgroups; when analyzed by sustained remission, the actual rate was approximately 3%.^1,2,3,4

  Note: this is also why you frequently see rather odd and very specific benefits ascribed to drugs, particularly “me-too” ones which essentially copy an existing drug to bring a profitable product to market (but need some marketable differentiator to justify approval and profitability).

• Composite endpoints — Bundling serious outcomes (death) with trivial ones (minor symptoms) into a single measure (or doing the same with trial benefits), dilutes drug harms and inflates its apparent benefits. The UKPDS diabetes trial’s “12% benefit” was driven mostly by laser eye treatments, not reductions in death or heart attacks.^1,2

• Disease-specific rather than overall mortality — Reporting fewer heart attacks while total deaths are unchanged (once again prioritizing reporting which ever measure comes up positive). The MRC blood pressure study was spun as a “33% -reduction in fatal strokes” — but there were 9 more coronary deaths, and total mortality didn’t change.¹

• Dose-response deception — Claiming a linear dose-response relationship while the actual curve plateaus, with negligible gain from higher doses while harms increase linearly (and as such, data are presented without graphs).¹
  Note: this is a major issue with ever-expanding blood pressure treatment thresholds, as the initial reduction in mortality is assumed to continue, but in reality reverses at the levels we treat to (detailed here).

• As-treated or per-protocol analysis substituted for intention-to-treat — Excluding dropouts (who often left due to side effects) rather than analyzing all randomized patients. One Swedish review found that in 42 SSRI trials, companies performed both analyses but published only the more favorable per-protocol results rather than intention-to-treat analysis in all but two cases.^1,2

• Last observation carried forward — When patients drop out, their last recorded measurement is often carried forward in the data as though it persisted. For rimonabant, this method showed 6.4 kg weight loss above placebo; the more honest baseline-carried-forward analysis showed only 1.5 kg — a fourfold exaggeration.¹

• Association presented as causation — While “correlation is not causation” line is widely used to dismiss anything which threatens the pharmaceutical industry, in clinical research, preferable observational correlations are sometimes framed as causal.¹

• Ad-hoc hypotheses — When data contradicts the hypothesis, new explanations are invented to protect the core claim rather than revising it (e.g., Merck explained away excess Vioxx heart attacks by claiming the comparator naproxen was “cardioprotective,” a completely unsupported falsehood that was later refuted).^1,2

• Bundling and splitting trials — Presenting two separate trials with different protocols as one study (e.g., in the CLASS trial), or splitting a single negative trial to make it appear as two (e.g., Glaxo’s study 329^1,2 ). Likewise, the NovoSeven trauma trial’s abstract described one trial as “two trials.”¹

• Theoretical arguments substituted for clinical evidence — When a drug fails to demonstrate superiority, sponsors invoke mechanistic reasoning. For example, Astra-Syntex argued naproxen should be superior to cheaper analgesics because it dampens inflammation yet a factorial trial found it had no effect on edema.¹
  Note: the”chemical imbalance” theory of depression — invented as a marketing rationale for SSRIs despite no supporting evidence (and existing evidence arguing the opposite) is perhaps the most successful example: a theoretical argument that bypassed the need for clinical proof of benefit, was used for decades to justify mass prescribing and only recently was finally debunked.

Controlling What Gets Published

• Burying negative results — Suppressing unfavorable trials while publishing favorable ones multiple times, sometimes with different author lists (again taking advantage of the random variation seen in trials).^1,2,3 An FDA analysis of antidepressants found the published effect size was 32% larger than what all submitted trials showed¹ and a single olanzapine trial was published 143 times.¹

• Publication planning as industrial infrastructure — Medical communications companies orchestrate entire “webs of evidence” — abstracts, supplements, case studies, off-label seeding articles — years before a drug launches. For Zoloft, Current Medical Directions (a medical communications company) produced more articles than academic authors, in higher-impact journals, with more favorable profiles.¹

• Selective center reporting — In multi-center trials, highlighting only sites with favorable results.¹

• Hiding adverse events — Recoding (changing the diagnosis) of serious harms to obscure them with all sorts of euphemisms sadly is standard practice. Merck removed three heart attacks from a Vioxx publication and reclassified one death as “cause unknown,” and for Gardasil (which had an extremely high injury rate), simply disclosed to the FDA that 49.6% of vaccine participants developed a “New Medical Condition,” 2.3% of which were categorized as “potentially indicative of a systemic autoimmune disorder.” Eli Lilly recoded suicide attempts on Prozac as “overdose” and suicidal ideation as “depression.” Companies claimed SSRIs caused sexual disturbances in only 5% of patients yet an independent study found the true rate was 59%. Glaxo revised its paroxetine withdrawal reaction estimate from 0.2% to 25% — a hundredfold increase — quietly and in small print. In psychiatry, akathisia (a drug-induced restlessness that drives suicide and homicide) is routinely recoded as “agitation” or “anxiety” — reframing a drug side effect as a symptom of the underlying disease.^1,2

  Note: in the COVID vaccine trials, Maddie De Garay’s crippling, permanent and agonizing pediatric Pfizer injury was labeled as “functional abdominal pain,” Olivia Tesenair’s cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (which was irrefutably linked to Moderna) was labeled as “lymphadenopathy,” and Augusto Roux, who had a pericardial effusion (and likely pericarditis), and despite a negative test and extensive protest for Roulex, was diagnosed by the lead author of Pfizer’s trial with “anxiety” and “COVID-19” (unrelated to the vaccine). Each of these was quite consequential; for example, shortly after the rollout, I noticed unusual cancers occurring next to mRNA injection sites, and at a recent hearing on COVID vaccine induced cancers, one witness highlighted seventy papers detailing hundreds of post-vaccine cancers similar to what I’d observed (e.g., nearby sarcomas) had been reported in the literature^1,2—but since Moderna hid Olivia’s case from the trial, our observations were dismissed because there was “no evidence” the mRNA vaccines could do this.

• Suppressing numerical data on unfavorable outcomes — Simply removing numbers that show the drug doesn’t work. In Gøtzsche’s own (early) ankle trial at Astra-Syntex, the company’s management removed all numerical data showing naproxen had no effect on edema from the published paper.¹

• Incomplete trial registration — Despite a 2007 law requiring it, nearly half of trials for some drugs (or their results) go undisclosed, hiding negative results and distorting the evidence base clinicians rely on.^1,2,³

• Patient-level data denial — As mentioned before, regulators (FDA, EMA) and pharmaceutical companies withhold individual patient-level data, making independent reanalysis impossible. When Gøtzsche obtained some via leaks and legal action, they consistently revealed more harms than the published versions disclosed.¹ Similarly, through leaks, FOIA requests and lawsuits, individuals like Aaron Siri and Steve Kirsch repeatedly showed the publications of COVID vaccine injury data greatly overstated vaccine efficacy and safety. Corroberating this, a collaborative forensic audit of the Pfizer C4591001 trial data (obtained through the PHMPT court order) documented 1,203 subjects “lost to randomization” across 108 sites, at least 1,209 adverse events re-qualified to COVID symptoms, delayed reporting of deaths with cardiac signals before the EUA, systematic differences between the Process 1 clinical trial product and the Process 2 commercial product that was never formally compared, and whistleblower testimony corroborating widespread GCP violations.

• Publishing in obscure or fabricated journals — Merck published a fabricated journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, designed to look peer-reviewed but serving as a marketing vehicle. Likewise, favorable meta-analyses are placed in specialty journals where they face less scrutiny.¹

Spinning the Presentation

• Spin in abstracts and conclusions that contradict the data — Even when raw data shows marginal or negative results, abstracts emphasize positive-sounding phrases. In Gøtzsche’s analysis of 196 NSAID comparison trials, 81 conclusions favored the new drug while only one favored the control — but the actual data showed no difference. In Alzheimer’s trials where Vioxx tripled total mortality, the published papers stated the drug was “well tolerated.”^1,2,3

  Note: it is extremely common for abstracts or conclusions to not match what the data in the study shows. This often occurs either because the data harms the sponsor or because it goes against prevailing dogmas in science and threatens a researcher who publishes it unless they hide the consequential finding within the paper while having the abstract (the only part most people read) say the opposite.

• Asymmetric framing of benefits vs. harms — Benefits presented in relative terms (big-sounding percentages), harms presented in absolute terms or dismissed as “not statistically significant” even when the point estimate suggests risk. In a study of 393 Vioxx abstracts, 3.4 times as many commented on GI bleeding as on thrombotic effects (which killed more people than the reduction in fatal NSAID GI bleeds Vioxx was marketed for) before its withdrawal for causing too many fatal thrombotic effects. Likewise, Vioxx’s VIGOR publication devoted two full tables to GI adverse effects but mentioned thromboses only in a few lines of text.^1,2,3

• Reporting percentages instead of raw numbers — Vioxx’s VIGOR trial reported thrombotic events only as percentages, making it impossible to calculate the true number of events. When Gøtzsche calculated backwards, he found additional events unaccounted for.¹

• Presenting small differences on large scales without clinical context — The difference between escitalopram and citalopram after 8 weeks was 1 point on a 60-point scale — clinically meaningless — yet presented as significant.¹

• NNT/NNH selective framing — Highlighting a favorable number needed to treat while omitting or minimizing the number needed to harm, or switching between absolute and relative framing for benefits versus harms to make the risk-benefit ratio appear lopsided.^1,2

• Statistical significance conflated with clinical relevance — Highlighting tiny differences that reach statistical significance due to large sample sizes while ignoring that they have no practical meaning for patients.^1,2

• Semantic framing to soften perception of harms — Companies speak of “efficacy and safety” rather than “benefits and harms.” After all 32 participants at a meeting agreed COX-2 inhibitors increase cardiovascular events, the Danish drug agency wrote they “may be associated with a risk” — three hedging terms where the honest version would say the drugs “increase thromboembolic events.” Merck’s subsequent letter to doctors added a fourth hedge.¹

• Misleading nomenclature implying therapeutic superiority — Terms like “second-generation antipsychotics” and “atypical antipsychotics” imply newer is better. A 2009 meta-analysis of 150 trials found nothing special about the new drugs. “Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors” was invented by SmithKline Beecham although “there is nothing particularly selective about them.”¹

• Unretrievable references as window dressing — A study of 287 drug advertisements found that of 125 promotional claims with references, 23 cited “data on file” or inaccessible sources, and 45 of the remaining 102 were not actually supported by the reference cited.¹

• Inappropriate statistical framing in abstracts — The TORCH trial’s correct factorial analysis showed fluticasone had no effect whatsoever (rate ratio 1.00). But the abstract used only half the patients in a non-factorial comparison, producing a near-significant result that gave clinicians the false impression both of Glaxo’s drugs should be used.¹

Controlling the Narrative

• Publication and Media Control — Pharmaceutical companies use multiple levers to guarantee favorable publications, such as purchasing thousands of reprints of journal issues containing their studies (a major revenue source for many journals) or through payments to their editors (multiple studies have found half the editors and peer reviewers of premier medical journals had taken pharmaceutical payments^1,2,3,4). Once published in a high-impact journal, pharmaceutical companies can reliably count on the mainstream media to amplify the results as definitive truth.
  Note: it is nearly impossible to get research which threatens vested interests published in academic journals, and as Senator Johnson highlighted at his recent hearing on mRNA vaccines and cancer, researchers who were able to clear that high bar and published papers on early treatments for COVID or issues with the COVID vaccines subsequently were relentlessly attacked from every direction and then eventually had their papers retracted for spurious reasons (or no reason at all). Likewise, whenever a paper critical of vaccination which cleared the high bar for publication begins being cited, it often is retroactively retracted for unjustified reasons, with Andrew Wakefield’s autism paper being the most noteworthy case, and Miller’s VAERS analysis showing SIDS clusters near vaccination being the most recent (where the editor, when asked, refused to even provide a reason for the retraction).

• Ghostwriting and sponsor control — Companies write papers and pay academics to attach their names. Internal Pfizer documents stated studies “belong to Pfizer” and data exists to “support marketing.”¹ Seventy-five percent of industry-initiated trials in one sample showed ghost authorship.¹ Sponsors typically retain data ownership, analysis rights, and publication vetoes.^1,2,3

• KOL capture and conflicted guideline committees — Key opinion leaders (KOL) with industry ties design trials, sit on guideline committees, and shape consensus (e.g., the NCEP cholesterol guidelines had members with over 70 conflicts of interest).^1,2
  Note: the NCEP committee (where each member on average took money from six statin manufacturers) recommended “Aggressive LDL lowering for high-risk patients [primary prevention] with lifestyle changes and statins.” When almost the same set of studies were reviewed by a Canadian division of the Cochrane Collaboration without conflicts of interest, they concluded “Statins have not been shown to provide an overall health benefit in primary prevention trials.” hence illustrating that Fauci’s corrupt NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines committee was far from an isolated case.

Lastly, many of the clinical trials built on these tactics are themselves built on preclinical research that is unreliable for independent reasons — flawed animal models that don’t translate to humans (150+ failed antisepsis drugs from mouse models), contaminated or misidentified cell lines (up to 36% of studies affected), inadequate sample sizes and absent randomization in animal studies, and batch effects in genomics data that were artifacts of when samples were processed rather than real biology. Roughly half of preclinical research may be untrustworthy, at an estimated cost of $28 billion per year in the US alone, meaning many clinical trials are doomed from inception — not because of deliberate manipulation, but because they are testing hypotheses generated by irreproducible science. This compounds every downstream tactic listed above.¹

Note: a key initiative MAHA’s NIH director is attempting to spearhead is to incentivize scientists to engage in the less glamorous replication research so that it can become possible to identify the erroneous studies contaminating the scientific literature.

Reclaiming Science

The promise of RCTs is that they eliminate the modest improvement sometimes seen from placebo effects and prevent investigators from inflating drug benefits. As this article shows, those gains are vastly outweighed by the sheer number of “acceptable” ways to doctor clinical trials, making positive results effectively a foregone conclusion, guaranteeing sponsors a return on their investment, and securing the funding the entire research enterprise revolves around.

The consequences speak for themselves. We are flooded with therapies of marginal efficacy that drive ever-increasing healthcare spending, enable catastrophes like COVID-19, and leave millions of Americans languishing with chronic debilitating illnesses. Simultaneously, injured patients are continually gaslighted because the medical community has been conditioned to believe pharmaceutical injuries are not real unless clinical trials corroborate them, yet the trials are systematically designed to erase them.

This was underscored by a recent Senate hearing focused on corruption in science, where Senator Ron Johnson walked through many of the points discussed in this article, highlighting the disconnect between treatment efficacy and guideline inclusion, who can afford to run the trials that dictate those guidelines, and what that means for patients who are left in the dark about their options (with an emphasis placed on the chart I annotated above since it concisely illustrates the consequences of the current paradigm).

What then is the solution?

First, while RCTs are invaluable for science, they cannot be the sole arbiter of truth. A standard needs to be put in place which acknowledges the value of the far cheaper observational trials that clinicians in practice can independently conduct. If clinically significant results are obtained through observational trials, they must be viewed as the “best-available evidence” until a more costly large RCT affirms or refutes them. The most efficient tool we have to refine the practice of medicine is allowing clinicians in the field to figure out what works and then have their peers replicate those studies. During the AIDS crisis, doctors in practice found ways to use existing therapies to treat the disease, while academics in their ivory towers (with pharmaceutical partnerships) failed to produce results. Yet, despite Congressional hearings that demanded Fauci stop obstructing what doctors had found worked, he refused and we were eventually left with a toxic drug that worsened rather than improved AIDS. In turn, since both he and the medical system were never held accountable, it was a foregone conclusion the same thing would happen during COVID-19.

Second, something has to change with the regulatory standards that make it impossible to bring a product to market without a large RCT. This could be accomplished by permitting replicated observational trials to earn limited approvals (where insurance is not required to cover the therapy and only claims which do not overtly state the therapy cures a disease are permitted), allowing off-patent therapies with an extensive track record of safety and efficacy to earn that same limited approval, or redirecting the FDA’s regulatory powers towards safety and product quality control rather than assessing efficacy.

Third, data transparency is essential, and we must make it clear that we cannot be required to abide by scientific policies based on obfuscated data we are expected to trust the summaries of. The evidence-based-medicine community has rallied for data transparency for decades, and we all paid the price for the lack of it during the “safe and effective” COVID vaccine roll-out where we were prohibited from seeing any of the actual safety monitoring data. Science’s successes arose from it being self-correcting and open to scrutiny but all of that goes out the window once it turns into a dogmatic process of us accepting what scientific experts tell us to believe about the data.

Most importantly, once you strip away the elaborate constructs used to hide this scientific fraud, it’s quite obvious what’s being done. Previously, we had to rely on courageous academics who would dig into the depths of the research to expose what was happening, making it only possible to expose a very limited slice of the fraud. Thanks to AI, that same process is now very easy to do, and I believe will expose this entire enterprise to the scrutiny it has long hidden itself from.

On that last point, my experience with AI has consistently been that the results you get are directly proportional to what you feed into it. If you ask an open ended question and have it research the topic for you, the answers will be fraught with errors, hallucinations and falsehoods that reaffirm the orthodoxy. If you directly give it the materials you want processed (e.g., the full text of the study, any supplemental materials attached to it, and everything within its entry on clinicaltrials.gov) along with clear instructions for what you want assessed, you will get a good output. A major reason I wrote this article was so there would be an easy way to copy and paste in the common ways clinical trials are doctored, so that you could effectively ask AI “are there any indications the risk benefit ratio of this study was artificially inflated? Please assess this study for each of these and anything else which could bias the conclusion.”

Note: different AIs are better at certain tasks than others. In this article, I compiled my thoughts on the relative merits of the existing options.

AI is a disruptive technology which, amongst other things, is breaking the information monopoly that was created by hiding behind a wall of text most people could not practically decipher. On one hand, this is immensely hopeful for medicine, as that information monopoly has been utilized to prop up countless abhorrent drugs with terrible risk-benefit ratios. Conversely, it is also worrisome, as so much money is on the line that it is virtually inevitable the pharmaceutical industry will find ways to co-opt it so that it does not threaten their profits. For example, it would be very easy for AI to analyze all the electronic health record data we’ve collected to determine the efficacy and harms of each treatment being utilized for medical care, yet this has never been done. The only people I know who tried (years ago) told me they were shut down because the data they obtained directly threatened pharmaceutical interests.

Being aware of this inevitable trajectory, Steve Kirsch has been diligently trying to support the creation of an independent AI (alter.systems) which will not subsequently be co-opted. He recently mentioned that it is excellent for dissecting the flaws and biases within scientific papers, and asked if I would be willing to help promote it so it can get the critical mass to become a viable alternative to the major platforms.

After looking at Alter AI, I concluded it lacks the biases I see in the other engines (as it instead is overtly skeptical towards the pharmaceutical industry) and quite good at breaking a lot of this complex deception down into very simple and blunt descriptions, but is not as well suited for the complex tasks I often engage in which require processing large amounts of data (as it currently lacks the robust infrastructure the large AI companies have). In short, that makes it well-suited for health focused users who just want to know the truth or analyze individual studies (and recently gave me a fairly good breakdown of all the issues within the pro-industry testimony at the recent COVID vaccine cancer link hearing). Given that, I told Steve I would be happy to share it, but that I was not comfortable receiving referral fees for doing so. As such, if you use Alter AI and decide you want to upgrade to higher functionality (or just financially support them), the two letter reader discount code I was given (MD) has been set to give a portion of what you pay to charity (specifically The Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, as they do a lot of important work in this field).

Note: all of the above is in line with my policy for this newsletter to not promote products (which fortunately I do not need to do thanks to your support), so despite many requests to do so, I rarely do (only in instances where I believe one represents the best option for a particular issue I need to provide an optimal solution for, or because I feel it’s important to help create the market or supply chain for something so it can become available to the health community).

Conclusion

When modern propaganda was first developed, after the public realized it had been used on them throughout World War 1, a fierce debate (detailed here) erupted over whether engineering public consensus was compatible with democracy. One side argued crowds were irrational and that everything had grown too complex for regular citizens to understand what was best for society, so it was necessary to use propaganda to make the public follow the decisions of experts. The other (led by John Dewey, who warned that insulated experts without democratic accountability would inevitably become self-reinforcing and prone to flawed policies—as we saw throughout COVID) argued this meant we simply needed to be educated and empowered to understand those complex subjects. Since propaganda was necessary to win World War 2, the propagandists won (a trajectory Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address, cautioning that public policy could become "the captive of a scientific-technological elite"), and from there, centralized information control quietly expanded into science and medicine, eventually producing a system where propaganda compelled the public to support “the science” while being kept in the dark over the parameters of the decisions being made.

Now however, in part due to COVID breaking public trust in expert-based governance, in part due to free speech being able to rapidly disseminate online, and in part due to AI making the “domain of experts” easily accessible to the public, the pendulum at last appears to be swinging the other way on this century-old debate which has defined the course of our entire society as it is no longer possible for the propagandists to control the narrative. For example, “experts” have long been able to proclaim industry talking points with impunity, but at Johnson’s recent hearing, after Chief Medical Officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology extolled the virtues of mRNA vaccines for cancer, Senator Johnson once again pointed out to everyone the “expert witness” was completely unfamiliar with basic technology of the vaccine and the research which refuted all of her claims—something we have not seen since the 1994 Congressional hearings that publicly exposed Big Tobacco’s CEOs and their captive scientists as the hucksters they were.

In conclusion, I hope this article was a helpful resource for you. It has been immensely frustrating to see these same tactics used again and again with impunity, and it is my sincere hope that by exposing them and making a concise summary of them available, we can help create the grassroots momentum to shift science back to a tool that advances humanity rather than one that exists to further enrich the wealthiest members of society. I sincerely thank you for your support of this newsletter, which makes it possible to get these critical messages out.

Lastly, it bears mentioning that Senator Ron Johnson has been one of the few leaders in Congress willing to use his platform to expose many of these issues. He first ran in 2010 on excessive federal spending he was concerned would “mortgage our children’s future,” then during COVID, rapidly recognized the suppression of therapeutic options would be catastrophic for both Americans and the economy, and put everything on the line to try to stop the COVID vaccine catastrophe. Given how many of these fights he’s had to wage, it is particularly disheartening that the experts policymakers sent to counter him at these hearings couldn’t even demonstrate a basic understanding of the technology they were defending, which inevitably raises the question of how well the experts who forced these policies on the public understood them either. His willingness to directly challenge credentialed witnesses on the public record, as we saw above, is precisely the kind of democratic accountability John Dewey argued was necessary to keep insulated experts honest and in check.

A recently updated index of all articles published in the Forgotten Side of Medicine (including the DMSO ones) can be viewed here. Additionally, to learn how other readers have benefitted from this publication and the community it has created, their feedback can be viewed here.

• Since 1976, when an innocuous flu was transformed into an impending national disaster and a disastrous experimental vaccine was rushed onto the public, the CDC and media have hyped a new pandemic almost every year. Yet as I’ll show here, nearly all of them amounted to nothing beyond securing the biodefense industry’s annual budget, with hantavirus being the current iteration of this cycle.

• A key factor driving these appropriations is the belief that viral pandemics cannot be treated, when in reality many highly effective broad-spectrum therapies have been developed but suppressed to ensure that new crops of proprietary treatments will always need to be created.

• Most respiratory viruses initially colonize the upper airway before eventually migrating to the lungs (something most recently extensively demonstrated for COVID-19). One of the simplest and most effective ways to rapidly treat respiratory infections is therefore to disinfect the upper airway early, yet remarkably little awareness of this approach exists, despite traditional medical systems having independently arrived at models with many overlapping parallels.

• A key component of these protocols is cleaning out the sinuses, an area where conventional medicine consistently falls short. In turn, despite many highly effective and easily accessible therapies existing for sinusitis, an enormous number of patients continually struggle with sinus issues their doctors cannot resolve.

• DMSO, for example, has been demonstrated in dozens of studies to rapidly alleviate a variety of challenging sinus conditions, and a large number of readers here have reported improvements spanning chronic and acute sinusitis, sinus headaches, allergies, congestion, post-nasal drip, difficulty breathing, nasal polyps, and eustachian tube dysfunction. Yet once again, almost no awareness of these approaches exists.

• This article will discuss the forgotten causes and treatments of sinus, eustachian, and nasal disorders, along with exact protocols for some of the most effective methods I’ve come across, both those involving DMSO and those that don’t.

I feel one of the greatest issues in healthcare (which is a reflection of the society at large) is that things are so rushed that there isn’t time for doctors to connect with their patients. Because of this, a lot of the most critical parts of medicine get missed, and I’ve known so many patients who were harmed by the medical system because of the 15 minute visit model. As such, my original goal here was to connect with everyone who reached out to me, but now, due to the amount of work I feel obligated to put into the articles and just how many people contact me with urgent questions, that’s no longer possible.

I eventually decided that the best option I had was to try to address as many potential questions as possible in the articles post monthly open threads where anyone could ask what they wanted to, as that way I could efficiently get through the pressing questions I was not able to answer throughout my articles and then pair those threads with a shorter topic I’d wanted to cover, which this month will be the forgotten ways for restoring sinus health, healing the eustachian tubes and treating colds and flus (including the extensive data DMSO is a miraculous therapy for these conditions).

Note: on Thursday I posted an article highlighting how a doctored and misleading poll had caused Trump’s administration to partially abandon the vaccine issue. On Friday, he signed an executive order which set policies in motion to both create a safer (and greatly reduced) vaccine schedule and to make it much harder for the pharmaceutical industry to control the process by removing the power unelected officials and advisors had to set vaccine policy. This is a huge victory and I deeply grateful for each of you who has helped bring attention to this matter.

Hantavirus Hysteria

I have long viewed the annual hyping up of pandemics as annual CDC tradition they do to justify their budgets that the media happily goes along with because disease hysteria gives them a way to hook viewers without threatening any powerful interests.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in 2021, provided a far more detailed breakdown of this enterprise in The Real Anthony Fauci, where he documented a “two-decade strategy of promoting false pandemics as a scheme for promoting novel vaccines, drugs and Pharma profits” where institutional machinery learned to manufacture urgency by cycling through one hyped pathogen after another, each accompanied by media fear, vaccine campaigns, and things like massive livestock culls or Tamiflu pushes. Most importantly, the multibillion-dollar preparedness industry that grew around this cycle, faces no accountability when the pandemics inevitably fail to materialize or the promoted therapies turn out not to work.

As best as I can tell, this all was the result of infectious disease mortality steadily declining throughout the 20th century (due to improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and living conditions), which reduced the day-to-day urgency that had originally justified large public health bureaucracies and created the need for something else to justify their existence. This new model kicked into gear in 1976: after seeing a few signs that a novel swine flu which had appeared at Fort Dix could be a repeat of the 1918 influenza (which remains far and away the worst pandemic in modern history), the CDC director pushed for an emergency mass-vaccination campaign—despite the FDA’s influenza expert (Dr. Anthony Morris) stating there was no risk of a severe pandemic and Morris defying his superiors to alert the public.

The proposal made its way to the White House, where President Ford, facing an election year, endorsed it and gave the campaign the political momentum it needed to move forward (along with immunity the manufacturers had demanded). As Morris warned, the pandemic never materialized, but the emergency vaccine (released a month before the election) injured a significant number of Americans, contributing to Ford’s loss. Following the election, doubts grew, and after six weeks, the vaccine was suspend. Upon inauguration, Ford’s Assistant Health Secretary resigned and Carter’s Health Secretary fired the CDC director (providing some accountability), but most of those responsible were never held accountable and the pandemic machine became entrenched in the health bureaucracy. However, the media (as the pharmaceutical industry had much less influence back then) did expose what occurred:

Note: officially, this vaccine was pulled because it caused Guillain-Barré syndrome in roughly 1 in 100,000 recipients. I do not believe the injuries were actually that rare—if they had been, they could have easily been swept under the rug (particularly since most GBS cases recover). Rather, I suspect the real scope of harm was much larger: I have seen patients who were injured by this vaccine (most recently, someone told me they refused the COVID vaccine because they still had permanent complications from the 1976 shot), a friend who was in practice at the time told me that roughly half of his 50–100 patients took the vaccine against his advice due to the media pressure, with two then developing GBS, and there was at least one reported instance where three elderly people who received shots within the same hour at the same clinic all had fatal heart attacks—deemed, of course, “unrelated” to the vaccine.

Below is what this cycle has looked like since 1976. For viruses that secured significant supplemental CDC or federal funding, I have marked them with dollar signs ($ = modest boost, =significant,$ = massive appropriations).

1976: Swine flu,^$$$ seasonal flu^$
1977-1980: Seasonal flu^$
1981: HIV/AIDS^$$$ emerges (wall-to-wall “mystery plague” coverage begins), seasonal flu^$
1982: HIV/AIDS^$$$ (escalating media panic, NIAID funding expansion), seasonal flu^$
1983: HIV/AIDS^$$$ (Fauci takes over NIAID; crisis narrative drives AZT development), seasonal flu^$
1984: HIV/AIDS^$$$ (budget growth accelerates; media saturation), seasonal flu^$
1985: HIV/AIDS,^$$$ seasonal flu^$ (largest influenza B epidemic since 1968–69)
1986-1987 HIV/AIDS,^$$$ seasonal flu^$
1988: HIV/AIDS,^$$$ seasonal flu,^$ hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome^$(brief media attention)
1989-1992: HIV/AIDS,^$$$ seasonal flu^$
1993: Hantavirus^$ (Four Corners outbreak—”mystery killer” headlines, CDC “emerging threat” framing), HIV/AIDS,^$$$ seasonal flu^$
1994-1996 HIV/AIDS,^$$$ seasonal flu^$
1997: Avian influenza H5N1^$$ (Hong Kong—”next pandemic” headlines, mass poultry culls); HIV/AIDS^$$$ seasonal flu^$
1998: Avian influenza continuation,^$$ seasonal flu^$
1999: West Nile virus^$$ (mosquito panic maps, “deadly new threat” coverage, initial CDC emergency response and surveillance buildup, also was repeated in subsequent 2002 and 2012 outbreaks), seasonal flu^$
2000: Seasonal flu^$
2001-2002: Anthrax attacks^$$$ (wall-to-wall bioterror coverage, massive biodefense funding surge); seasonal flu^$
2003-2004: SARS^$$ (global quarantines, “killer coronavirus” fear, sustained front-page coverage), seasonal flu^$
2005-2006: Avian influenza H5N1 resurgence^$$ (Fauci warns of “time bomb,” “millions could die” headlines, Tamiflu stockpiled at billions in cost), seasonal flu^$
2007-2008: Seasonal flu^$
2009-2010: Swine flu H1N1^$$$ (WHO pandemic declaration, vaccine drives, mass culls, heavy sustained coverage), seasonal flu^$
2011: Seasonal flu^$
2012-2013: MERS^$ (”next SARS” headlines, camel-linked global risk stories), seasonal flu^$
2014: Ebola^$$$ (West Africa—”global catastrophe” coverage, travel panic, wall-to-wall for months), seasonal flu^$
2015: Zika^$$ emerges (microcephaly panic, birth defect maps, Fauci pushes $2B+ for vaccine research), seasonal flu^$
2016: Zika^$$ peak (sustained fear coverage, mosquito control campaigns); seasonal flu^$
2017: Yellow fever^$ (outbreak coverage, vaccine campaigns), seasonal flu^$
2018: Nipah virus^$ (India—”next Ebola” headlines, brief but intense coverage), seasonal flu^$ (2017–18 season estimated 61,000 deaths—one of the worst modern seasons, heavy media coverage)
2019: Seasonal flu^$
2020-2021: COVID-19^$$$ (non-stop global coverage, unprecedented funding and mandates); seasonal flu^$
2022: COVID-19,^$$$ Monkeypox^$$ (WHO emergency declaration, “new threat” coverage despite low risk/deaths, Jynneos vaccine contracts), avian influenza H5N1 resurgence^$$ (mass poultry culls), seasonal flu^$
2023: Marburg virus^$ (”Ebola-like” warnings), COVID-19,^$$ avian influenza continuation,^$$ seasonal flu,^$ “tripledemic” coverage^$
2024: Avian influenza H5N1,^$$ in dairy cattle (renewed “pandemic potential” coverage, vaccine development), COVID-19,^$ seasonal flu^$
2025: Seasonal flu^$ (worst flu season in 15 years—heavy media coverage, highest hospitalization rates since 2009), COVID-19^$
2026: Hantavirus^$ (Andes virus cruise ship outbreak—13 cases, 3 deaths, CDC deploys response team, passengers quarantined in Nebraska, wall-to-wall coverage), seasonal flu^$ COVID-19^$

Of these, only a handful actually turned into a significant public health issue: COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, the 2009 swine flu (which spread widely though it was milder than predicted) and Ebola (which devastated West Africa but was largely contained outside the region). Everything else either fizzled, was contained to small clusters, or involved therapies and vaccines that turned out to be ineffective or unnecessary at the scale promoted. Yet nearly all of them secured additional CDC funding, and every single one received similar significant media coverage—leading to RFK Jr. describing the whole process as “Groundhog Day” playing out over and over.

Because of this, I initially argued with people over the annual pandemic hysteria and then switched to being completely disengaged each time it happened. The sole exception to this was COVID-19, because starting in the middle of December 2019 (when the Wuhan outbreak was discussed on anonymous online message board), there instead was no mainstream coverage of it, despite it finally having the rare mix of characteristics needed to create an actual pandemic, and as it grew and spread, the media did all they could to downplay it (e.g., “it’s just a flu bro,” and framing concerns about it as right-wing xenophobia towards the Chinese)—leading me to suspect something was seriously amiss.
Note: New York City officials encouraged attendance at Lunar New Year events in Chinatown in early February, telling people not to change plans due to “misinformation”^1,2 and Nancy Pelosi visited San Francisco’s Chinatown on Feb 24 and urged people to visit shops and restaurants there to support the community against stigma.¹

Given my cynicism towards this industry, I still was a bit surprised they next chose to make a big deal out of monkeypox as the disease is very difficult to transmit (requiring prolonged physical contact and its spread was almost entirely constrained to sexually active homosexual males). However, this still did not prepare me for this year’s Hantavirus hysteria—a disease people every year occasionally get from coming into contact with things (e.g., feces, urine, nesting materials) infected rodents have left in their vicinity—that is by far the rarest in the United States (roughly 30 cases a year), and except for one rare South American strain (which has very poor transmission), can never be transmited from person to person, making it even less likely than monkeypox to become a global health catastrophe. Nonetheless, after one person got that strain prior to a cruise, 12 more people in close contact on that same cruise then got it (ultimately resulting in 3 deaths, one of whom was the original recipient) and appropriate quarantine measures were implemented (effectively ending the “outbreak”) a national media hysteria and endless discussions on managing hantavirus still followed.

Managing Pandemics

Having now watched this process for decades, I have three general thoughts on all of it (which I rarely see enter the discussion):

•In most cases, the viruses which are actually dangerous reciprocally have low transmission, in part due to the fact that it’s hard for animal viruses to jump to humans and even harder for them to jump from other humans to humans, and in part because evolution will pressure viruses that easily transmit between people to become less lethal so they can better spread. Because of this, it’s very rare for a “catastrophic pandemic” to be able to emerge (COVID-19 being the key exception due to it being artificially engineered to be both dangerous and easily transmissible, which allowed it to be briefly be dangerous before evolving to a more benign form), and when dangerous viruses emerge, they typically have a low enough transmissibility that they can be managed with standard quarantine measures (as we saw with hantavirus).
Note: the other exception was the 1918 influenza, and to this day (despite having extensively researched it) I am still not sure why that disease became so deadly.

•With give or take every disease on the list I previously provided, attempts were made to make a vaccine, all of which to varying degrees failed, with the most “successful” attempts (for flu and COVID) having poor efficacy due to the fact the strains constantly change so the vaccines rapidly became outdated and needed to be rereleased each year.

•A central dogma in modern medicine is that while bacterial and fungal infections can be easily treated, viruses can’t, and at best, you can have selective inhibitors for viruses (that are often quite toxic) which partially mitigate the infections—which is a shame as having a way to treat their novel pandemics each time they emerge would be infinitely cheaper and effective than the hodgepodge of costly (and often ineffective) measures we use now.

The third point is where my focus has been drawn, as while lackluster therapeutics exist for viral infections, many “alternative” therapies exist for these infections, which as far back as the early days of AIDS we were using as every authority told us “nothing could be done.” However, the central issue was that those “umbrella therapies” (detailed further here) tended to be broad and non-specific in their antiviral activity, making them a direct threat to the lucrative market of developing individual therapeutics and vaccines for each emerging pandemic.

For instance, in a particularly sad example, when Africa was being overrun with Ebola in 2014, ozone advocates Robert Rowen MD and Howard Robins DPM, at the president’s invitation, went to Sierra Leone on an ozone medical mission trip and publicly chronicled what occurred as the trip progressed. There, they trained well over a hundred doctors and staff (including at the government Ebola treatment center) on how to administer ozone, but despite the president’s support, were abruptly blocked by the health ministry from applying it officially to patients for “unknown reasons.” As there was no approved treatment for Ebola (and the majority of cases were fatal), healthcare workers treating patients (who were not always bound by the same government restrictions) eagerly sought ozone and in the documented ebola cases where it was used, recipients fully recovered (along with ozone appearing to prevent ebola exposures from developing into disease).^1,2,3

While I have no direct proof, I am relatively certain the ozone treatments were abruptly aborted due to outside lobbying as that outbreak became a major international testing ground for experimental Ebola therapies and vaccines. Numerous organizations (e.g., the WHO, CDC, NIAID, BARDA, INSERM) conducted or supported clinical trials and research efforts focused on candidates such as the monoclonal antibody cocktail ZMapp, and vaccine platforms like rVSV-ZEBOV (later commercialized by Merck as Ervebo). These initiatives involved substantial funding and resources and the partially effective or promising therapeutics and vaccines developed from this work were later celebrated as important advances in biodefense and outbreak preparedness research. However, beyond costing far more than what locals could afford, ZMapp only partially worked on one strain of Ebola, while in outbreaks from other strains, it was useless, which includes the one currently sweeping through Africa where there is a desperate effort to develop new therapeutics.

Airway Disinfection

When viral illnesses are not treated and progress to becoming severe, it is often necessary to use more powerful antiviral therapies like ozone. However, in the earlier stages of the illness (when they have not yet penetrated into the body) a variety of treatments have high efficacy (e.g., C19early.com compiled the research showing dozens did for COVID-19).
Note: one pooled analysis of all research for each COVID-19 treatment found that there was no correlation between efficacy and the treatment being recommended to treat COVID-19; rather it simply was all the expensive and proprietary options which had some amount of data behind them which then entered the treatment guidelines.

Remarkably, one of the most effective COVID treatment options found was simply using something to clean out the nasal cavity early in the illness—but to this day few people are aware of it because public health officials never told us about it. In turn, while many off-patent COVID treatments were suppressed, I found the sidelining of nasal disinfectants particularly frustrating as, with a small bit of education, this option was accessible to virtually everyone and hence could have completely changed the course of the pandemic.

Furthermore, one of the key discoveries that caught my attention early in the pandemic was that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID) has a strong preference for upper airway tissue, particularly the nasal cavity and nasopharynx, where the virus typically replicates for several days to two weeks after infection and in most individuals, the infection remains limited to these upper airways until it is cleared by the immune system. However, in patients who progress to severe disease, the infection eventually migrates to the lower respiratory tract, leading to severe pneumonia, and in the most severe cases, the virus then entering the bloodstream.^1,2,3,4,5

What this essentially meant (and what the nasal disinfection studies hence showed) was that if you could eliminate SARS-CoV-2 in the upper airway before the infection had a chance to progress to the lungs, you had a very good chance of not only preventing severe COVID-19 but also greatly reducing the course of the illness itself (as many COVID symptoms result from the immune system trying to eliminate the virus in the upper airway). Furthermore, as COVID-19 evolved into a less severe disease, later variants showed an even stronger preference for the upper airway¹ (which is why Omicron was for more transmissible but much less dangerous and essentially vaccinated the entire population against COVID-19).

In turn, I found that telling people to clean out their upper airway (e.g., sinuses) to be one of the most effective things I could tell people to do (particularly since you could immediately either pick up the supplies or overnight them with Amazon in essentially every part of the United States) and before long, I had people ask if this also worked for the flu because they had done the protocol for what they thought was COVID but later learned was actually the flu but nonetheless rapidly recovered.

In each case, I essentially said: “I actually developed this for treating colds and flus, but once I saw the data for COVID-19, I realized that it probably would work for COVID as well and it did.”

Note: Similar to SARS-CoV-2, the viruses responsible for common colds and influenza also initially replicate in the upper airways. Influenza viruses have a mixed tropism — they preferentially infect upper airway epithelial cells but can more readily infect lower airway and lung cells than SARS-CoV-2 or rhinovirus. As a result, most flu cases stay in the upper airways, but progression to viral pneumonia occurs more often than with other common respiratory viruses. In contrast, rhinoviruses (the leading cause of colds) show the strongest preference for upper airway tissue and very rarely reach the lungs in otherwise healthy people.^1,2,3,4

Additionally, while I did not focus on using DMSO to treat COVID-19, a randomized trial of 1,252 COVID-19 patients, found a DMSO-containing oral spray (with zinc iodide and xylitol) used 5–10 times daily reduced the proportion of symptomatic patients from 68% to 3% by day 7, and viral PCR positivity from 93% to 9% by day 7, compared to standard care alone

Reclaiming Sinus Health

One of the key components of the protocol I've used was instructing people to clean out their sinuses, and over the years I've been surprised by both how poor the available instructions are for this and how many people struggle with chronic sinus issues medical care has not been able to help them with (or often even correctly diagnose). Rather, most of the approaches ENTs (otolaryngologists) offer only somewhat improve the situation (and in some cases involve rather extreme surgeries on the sinuses themselves).

Likewise, seven months ago I published an article highlighting DMSO’s unique capacity for healing the eyes (as it both concentrates in the eyes and counteracts the disease processes that cause most eye disorders), making it one of the best treatments I have ever come across for most eye conditions. There I highlighted numerous remarkable testimonials readers had shared, including one from a 75-year-old man who partially regained sight in an eye that had been blind since birth.

In Murray’s case, his goal was not to fix the eye (and most likely didn’t even conceive restoring its vision could be possible), but rather to address chronic sinus issues (as significant evidence shows DMSO helps sinusitis). Since DMSO gave Murray instant relief from his sinus issues, he continued applying it into the nose, and then once he noticed his vision suddenly began improving, decided to support that by applying it to his eyes (which worked). I mention this because while that story is extraordinary, one of the most common responses I got to it was readers skipping right past the vision restoration and instead asking if DMSO could really help their sinuses, which again underscores how lacking the existing options for sinusitis are.

Remarkably few know that extensive data shows DMSO heals the nose and sinuses:

• DMSO has been reported to treat sinusitis since at least the 1960s,¹ with one early account describing a woman’s sinusitis clearing within hours after DMSO was applied by Dr. Jacob to a cold sore.¹ By the 1980s, sinusitis was routinely listed among the conditions DMSO was unofficially recognized for.^1,2

• When Merck first investigated DMSO in 4,000 patients, they determined DMSO had demonstrated efficacy in sinusitis and that “A dilute solution to the nasal mucosa has resulted in the discharge of a great deal of infected material from the sinuses and relief of pain.”¹

• In one study, of 7 women with sinusitis (for 1 week to 9 months) 2 had a good response to DMSO and 5 had an excellent response.¹

• One study found that sinusitis in children treated with DMSO to the sinuses followed by local oxygenation resolved completely in 49 of 52 cases within 2 years, while many controls receiving standard treatments did not.¹

• A study of 44 patients with sinus tract infections found that local injection or topical application of resulted in full recovery in 40, and improvement in 2.¹

• DMSO combined with penicillin was shown to be effective for chronic suppurative sinusitis, with measurable improvements in immune function following treatment.¹

• In patients with uncomplicated frontal sinusitis, DMSO injected directly into the frontal sinus daily for 3–5 days demonstrated high therapeutic efficacy.¹

• In patients with chronic odontogenic sinusitis complicated by oroantral fistulas that had failed prior treatments (as they are difficult to treat), DMSO delivered via intrasinusal electrophoresis achieved complete resolution in 3–4 weeks (versus prolonged persistent issues with conventional management).¹

• A DMSO-containing antimicrobial gel injected into maxillary sinuses for chronic purulent sinusitis reduced treatment duration and shortened hospital stays by 3–4 days compared to standard antiseptic solutions.¹

• In 104 patients after endoscopic sinus surgery, a DMSO-containing medicated dressing placed in the sinuses produced faster pain relief, earlier restoration of nasal breathing, fewer sinusitis exacerbations (6% vs. 23%), and earlier drainage removal compared to 114 controls.^1,2

• DMSO was reported as effective for purulent sinusitis in cases where antibiotics alone had failed.¹

• DMSO drops reduced the duration of acute rhinitis within two days, and DMSO sinus washes were noted to be highly effective for purulent sinusitis in children.¹

• A nasal DMSO mixture tested in 31 patients with acute rhinitis restored nasal breathing often within 2 days and reduced recurrences compared to standard vasoconstrictors.¹

• Aerotitis (inability to tolerate elevation changes due to eustachian tube dysfunction) and aerosinusitis was successfully treated in ten of twelve patients (four of whom also had sinus pain and all responded) with DMSO nasal sprays.^1,2

• In a horse with chronic fungal sinusitis unresponsive to 9 months of prior treatment, DMSO with an antifungal applied topically to the nasal passages and sinuses produced a complete clinical resolution.¹

• DMSO has also been repeatedly used as a component of iontophoretic delivery systems that successfully treated conditions such as maxillary sinusitis and eustachitis.^1,2

Note: extensive data compiled here also shows DMSO treats a variety of ear and throat conditions (e.g., ear infections and tonsilitis).

Furthermore, Murray is not the only reader here who’s used DMSO to improve their sinuses and then discovered an unexpected improvement in vision^1,2,3 (while conversely readers who used it on the eyes,¹ thighs,¹ orally¹ or intravenously,¹ on the thighs or orally other parts of their body, including the eye, then saw their sinuses improve). In fact, many readers here have reported significant improvement in a wide range of sinus issues.^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20, 21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30, 31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40, 41,42,43,44,45}

Common improvements reported to me by readers included:

•Sinusitis resolutions (typically longstanding chronic sinusitis, but also acute sinusitis, and recurring sinus infections)^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18} (along with sinus infections being prevented¹ or becoming much easier to treat¹).

•Sinus headaches,^1,2,3,4,5 pressure,¹ and allergies,^1,2,3,4 resolving.

•Decongesting and draining of the sinuses,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12} clearing of trapped sinus material (“old sinus junk”),^1,2 and the sinuses or nostrils opening^1,2,3,4 (which in one case significantly improved sleep¹).

•Post-nasal drip,^1,2,3 chronic rhinitis,¹ eustachian tube pressure,^1,2 and sinus issues from scuba diving,¹ resolving.

•Nasal polyps^1,2,3 (including one which had completely obstructed breathing and not responded to surgery or steroids¹ and one that disappeared during sinus treatment¹).

Specific reader reports included:

•Their husband having a polyp completely obstructing his right nostril that a $25,000 surgery cleared, but the polyps returned within six weeks and the only thing that would clear them was high-dose steroids no one would prescribe. Diluted DMSO drops in the nose cleared him more completely than anything else had, and after 30 days he reported his right nostril was "more clear than it ever has been in his life."¹

•After sneezing 100+ times per day for six months with sinus congestion and itching a DMSO nasal spray completely cleared everything up in two weeks.¹

•After decades of chronic sinusitis, a prior sinus surgery, and recurrent infections that would last months, he found that adding DMSO to his twice-daily sinus rinse was life-changing: "My susceptibility to sinus infections has reduced—and if I get a sinus infection—it's not only much less severe, but it resolves completely in two to three weeks."¹

•At 37 weeks pregnant with severe congestion and throbbing facial pain, rolling DMSO across the sinuses and forehead: “within minutes my congestion vanished and my head stopped hurting. I’m shocked. It’s more effective than any decongestant I’ve tried.”¹

More remarkably, DMSO is not the only forgotten sinus treatment, I have come across which creates life-changing effects for individuals with chronic sinus issues, so in the second half of this open thread (which serves as an open forum for you to ask any lingering questions which has accumulated for the last month), I will discuss in detail:

•The simple protocol I use for treating colds, flus, COVID which blends traditional and modern therapeutic modalities.
•Some of the key under appreciated causes of sinusitis we are rarely told about.
•How to effectively rinse your sinuses and the best available tools for helping you or your children do that (recently an incredible one entered the market).
•Exactly how DMSO is used to treat the sinuses (along with other therapies which also greatly help the condition).
•How many of these approaches are also highly useful for a variety of ear conditions.

Read more

•Since MAHA and RFK came into power, the pharmaceutical industry has disproportionately focused its lobbying on neutralizing vaccine safety reform, with a key tactic being to stall meaningful action until Trump’s term expires so everything can be quietly rolled back.

•A central tool in this effort was a single poll conducted in late 2025, which concluded that vaccine skepticism is political suicide — results so dire they convinced the White House to shelve vaccine safety as a public issue until after the midterms.

•However, 25 other polls told a starkly different story: institutional trust has collapsed to historic lows, clear majorities support vaccine safety research and liability reform, and three MAHA-allied polls found that championing vaccine reform made candidates more favorable to voters, not less — while the leading Senate opponent of RFK’s vaccine work just lost his primary with only 24.8% of the vote.

•The Fabrizio poll achieved its outlier results through a series of deliberately biased design choices not present in earlier versions (which got opposite results). This article walks through them in detail, as they exemplify the techniques and word games propagandists routinely use to manufacture public consensus; once you learn to recognize them, you will start seeing them everywhere.

•This article will also review how these common rhetorical games have been repeatedly abused to manipulate the American people (e.g., with vaccines and autism), and the many parallels between what is happening now and the tactics used in 2020 to convince leaders to commit political suicide by forcing everyone to follow useless and counterproductive COVID mitigation efforts while they waited for a vaccine. Fortunately, things have changed this time around, and there is much broader support for overturning this sinister pharmaceutical agenda.

Since MAHA and RFK came into power, massive industries with profound lobbying capacities have faced major threats to their profits which cannot be neutralized with the traditional tactics they’ve long relied upon. Yet while many industries are threatened, what I have been the most surprised by is that on every front, they have disproportionately focused on opposing meaningful reforms to the American vaccine schedule (with what often felt like a coordinated campaign, as the same talking points would simultaneously appear across mainstream outlets, Senate hearings, agency actions, and private lobbying efforts directed at the White House).

A few months ago, a few people I know with knowledge of the political dynamics within the White House shared that they were very concerned the pharmaceutical industry was managing to overturn the Trump administration’s unprecedented push for vaccine safety by producing polling that had made the White House conclude they needed to drop the vaccine issue completely until after the midterms. This was highly concerning as a key tactic industry has been using to obstruct vaccine safety reform has been to stall things out so that by the time Trump’s term is over, nothing meaningful gets done and it hence can easily all be rolled back.

The central problem with that “poll” was that it was completely at odds with what virtually every other poll showed and what the electorate has shown (e.g., last week, Cassidy, the primary senator obstructing RFK’s vaccine work not only lost his primary, which is extraordinarily rare for an incumbent senator, but got just 24.8% of the vote¹—effectively ending his 20 year political career).

To try to change that course before it was too entrenched within the White House, I decided to confront it with a detailed summary of what all the actual polling data showed:

In the 25 applicable polls I found conducted between 2022 and 2025 (by many different reputable polling firms), their data consistently shows:

•9–34% of COVID vaccine recipients reported side effects, 7–13% categorized those side effects as serious, 24–28% personally know someone they believe died from the vaccine, and 46–55% of the general public believes the COVID vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths.

•This has been accompanied by an unprecedented collapse in institutional trust—a pivotal JAMA survey found trust in physicians and hospitals fell from 71.5% to 40.1% over the course of the pandemic—and an erosion of support for childhood vaccination, with a November 2025 Pew poll finding only 41% of Americans fully trust the CDC vaccine schedule (27% among Republicans).

Finally, three recent polls commissioned by MAHA allies to assess midterm viability (Zogby, Rosetta Stone, and FLA) found that a supermajority of voters support health and medical freedom policies including vaccine-related reforms, that MAHA is the single most effective issue for flipping swing voters, and that championing a reduced vaccine schedule made candidates more favorable to voters—not less.

The Fabrizio Poll

In contrast to these results, one poll conducted in November 2025, as mentioned before, found radically different results, with 80-90% of voters strongly supporting vaccines, 80% opposing anyone trying to reduce vaccine requirements and this translating to roughly a 12-31% point electoral swing. As this equates to a catastrophic loss in the midterms, the pollsters concluded:

Republican and Democratic candidates who support eliminating long standing vaccine requirements will pay a price in the election.…Vaccine skepticism is bad politics.

This thus allowed the voices within the White House opposed to Trump and RFK’s push for vaccine safety to have such a compelling argument they were able to make vaccine safety be off-limits from any public discussion until after the midterms (along with prohibiting vaccine policy actions the media could criticize and thus alienate voters). In parallel, food safety was presented as the overwhelmingly popular MAHA issue that hence needed to be focused upon (hence explaining the shift we saw).

In contrast, as I detailed previously, on a wide variety of vaccine safety questions, there was majority support for reform positions (including among Democrat voters), with the most relatable ones such as vaccine safety research being justifiable and opposing hard or soft mandates polling at 80 to 90% support. More telling than any poll, in 2022 (when significantly less vaccine skepticism existed than now), Ron Johnson became the first candidate to ever run on a vaccine safety platform, was relentlessly targeted for it throughout his campaign, and still won what, from the start, was one of the closest Senate races of 2022 (ultimately winning by 1%). In short, rather than being political suicide, in a very tight race, this issue energized his base more than it alienated voters.

However, while none of those 25 polls were promoted in the mainstream media (besides those highlighting the JAMA survey showing a profound loss of trust in medicine where the cause of that loss of trust was never discussed), that poll was. To quote the New York Times:

But underlying those promises was a political reality: Mr. Kennedy’s healthy eating agenda is popular. His vaccine agenda is not.

Just one in five voters approves of rolling back established vaccine recommendations, which has been a signature of Mr. Kennedy’s first year as health secretary, according to the Republican pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward, who surveyed voters in 35 competitive congressional districts about the Make America Healthy Again movement.

“While the MAHA agenda is broadly popular” with respect to food and agriculture, they wrote in December, “vaccine skepticism stands as an outlier, rejected by most voters even within the MAHA movement.”

Within the Trump administration, there is a strong desire for Mr. Kennedy to focus on issues that unite people and to de-emphasize vaccine policy, according to a person familiar with internal strategy discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them.

This hence suggests the poll was commissioned specifically to craft a narrative, and that like many of the other coordinated campaigns done to derail RFK’s vaccine safety efforts, immediately passed off to media networks establishment figures listen to (beyond NYT, this narrative was parroted by many other outlets including The Guardian, The Washington Post, Axios), with the likely goal being to pressure Republican candidates to not discuss vaccine safety through manipulative framing like what the NYT did in their article.

Jeffrey Tucker astutely noted that the sponsor for this poll was never disclosed — which is a significant red flag for any poll, but especially one that was then widely promoted by major media outlets as though it were authoritative (as basic journalistic standards require reporters to ask who commissioned a poll before treating it as credible)—indicating the sponsor likely wanted to hide their role, as most people would not place much weight on a poll concluding that vaccine skepticism is political suicide if they knew it was commissioned by the pharmaceutical industry.

More importantly, this poll used blatantly biased structuring (pollsters are not supposed to accept) which facilitated a result at odds with every other poll.

For the vague statement “vaccines save lives” to be true, all that is required is for at least two people in human history to have been saved from dying by a vaccine — something most people would be inclined to believe (e.g., receiving the rabies vaccine after being bitten by a rabid animal does save people from dying each year). As such, most respondents would feel pressured to agree, as disagreeing would seem to require denying something self-evidently true.

The second question uses “many” to make the claim extremely vague and hence hard to dispute (again pressuring respondents to agree rather than appear to be denying something obvious). Furthermore, actually assessing the validity of that statement requires an in-depth understanding of the existing treatment options for a very wide breadth of infectious diseases, how their efficacy data compares to vaccination (which even most doctors are not familiar with), and familiarity with alternative options few even know about — all of which again pushes respondents toward “yes.”

This question frames vaccine skepticism as someone questioning their doctor (who typically they will trust) rather than skepticism towards government guidelines or pharmaceutical manufacturers and per the wording, makes it so if you had trusted vaccines in the past enough to follow your doctors vaccination recommendations but no longer do (e.g., because your child had a vaccine reaction or you later learned about their dangers), you still are a “yes” here. In short, both of these created a fairly high bar to meet for vaccine skepticism that was not evident from a quick glance at the wording.

Following respondents being primed to support vaccines (by having answered yes to three successive questions designed to elicit agreement regardless of one's actual position), the poll then leveraged those freshly committed answers — asking respondents, in effect, whether they would vote against a candidate who challenges the very recommendations they had just affirmed supporting, and whether the government should dismantle the very protections they had just agreed were beneficial.

Like the previous questions, several design choices in these final two items worked in concert to inflate opposition to vaccine reform.

First, both questions ask about removing vaccine “recommendations“ rather than mandates — a word choice that mirrors the CDC’s own rhetorical sleight of hand, in which its “recommendations” are technically voluntary but are then adopted by schools, employers, and government agencies as de facto mandates. By using this framing, both the electoral question and the policy battery make the reform position sound like it is dismantling mere guidance rather than challenging compulsory requirements — which is what most vaccine skeptics are actually objecting to.

Second, in both questions those recommendations are characterized as “long-standing“ or “established,” which introduces a status quo bias — respondents aren’t just being asked whether these vaccines should be recommended, but whether they would overturn something presented as settled and time-tested. That is a significantly higher psychological bar.

Third, the policy battery item names the three diseases the media has most aggressively primed the public to fear — whooping cough, measles, and hepatitis — rather than asking about the schedule as a whole or about the vaccines that have generated the most public concern. This forces respondents to weigh “removing recommendations” against the specific diseases they’ve been conditioned to find most alarming (besides COVID which was explicitly excluded from this poll).

Fourth, there is a structural priming effect created by the sequence of items in the final question. Every preceding item frames the government as adding a protection or removing something widely recognized as harmful — labeling chemicals, removing pesticides, restricting subsidies for junk food. This establishes a pattern in which supporting government action feels like the reasonable, pro-health position. The vaccine item then abruptly reverses the frame: now the respondent is being asked whether the government should dismantle something it’s done for a longtime to help us. After six or seven consecutive items where “yes” meant supporting a health safeguard, “yes” now means removing one — a jarring shift most respondents would not consciously register but which biases them toward “no.”

Note: the poll never disclosed whether the items in this battery were presented in the order shown or randomized — a basic methodological detail any rigorous survey would specify. Given the clear directionality of the rest of the poll’s design, however, the most parsimonious assumption is that the order was fixed, and that this specific priming effect was intentional.

In short, this poll did what propagandists routinely do (and I periodically highlight instances of in this newsletter). They routinely are tasked with asserting something which is clearly wrong (or inherently contradictory), and to accomplish this they use a deliberately ambiguous phrase that is able to morph into their desired meaning for each situation encountered.

For example, like the vague but compelling statement ‘vaccines save lives,’ the phrase 'vaccines are safe and effective' is invariably stated in a manner that implies absolute (100%) safety and efficacy — but is never quantified, which gives its proponents the high ground to promote vaccines while simultaneously providing a built-in pivot whenever vaccines fail or cause harm (e.g., at a 2024 hearing Fauci stated “no vaccine is 100% effective” when asked why he lied to America about the COVID vaccine’s efficacy).

Likewise, I previously made the case that framing the vaccine injury discussion around autism was an elaborate rhetorical feat which resulted from the following:

1. Prior to the mass-censorship of medical journals, vaccines were recognized in the medical literature to cause encephalitis and brain damage.
2. The (original) DPT vaccine had a particularly high rate of vaccine encephalitis, with the injuries it caused (and NBC covering them) mobilizing parents to create what became the modern vaccine safety movement.
3. The media (which had not yet been bought out) then began covering DPT injuries where both parents of injured children and vaccine skeptical doctors, on national television, stated the vaccine caused “mental retardation.”
4. This media blitz galvanized vaccine injury lawsuits (primarily for DPT brain injury and death) and public support for the 1986 vaccine safety legislation.
5. That act provided guaranteed compensation for a small number of injuries that acknowledged to be linked to vaccination, a commitment to study a few more that many thought were (one of which was autism), and a commitment to add new injuries to the schedule as evidence emerged and new vaccines with their own unique risks entered the market.
Note: as the US government paid the compensation, it had a vested interest against doing so, and not surprisingly, the promised studies were never done and despite a glut of vaccines entering the market, virtually no compensated conditions were ever added.
6. Five neurological injuries were compensated, with encephalitis or encephalopathy being attributed to two of the three existing vaccines (MMR and DPT but not polio).
7. After the act was passed, a widespread push began to eliminate the use of the stigmatizing word mental retardation, culminating in a 2009 law which effectively banned it from Federal statues.
8. This coincided with mentally retarded children being relabeled as autistic (e.g., this is what actually is shown in two of the most commonly cited studies which claim the autism explosion is a result of diagnostic criteria changes^1,2).
9. Two different conditions were then blurred together. Severe intellectual disability (profound autism—a term most people outside the autism community do not even know exists) and autistic behaviors (frequently in individuals who were otherwise completely functional).
10. Autism was never clearly defined.

This accomplished the following:

•The government no longer had to compensate vaccine encephalitis (which would have bankrupted the compensation program), as parents instead were primed to believe they had to fight for acknowledgment “vaccines cause autism” and the debate was reframed around this (which included the academic journals and mass media doing all they could to debunk it).
•Individuals with less severe forms of autism (or their associates) became foot soldiers to attack anyone who claimed vaccines caused debilitating brain injuries by citing the fact their own (non-profound) autism was a gift not a disability.
•Unlike the stark contrast “mental retardation” provides, autism became such a vague and amorphous label it was very easy for most people to write it off in their mind as something quirky and inconsequential they didn’t need to think about.

So because of some sneaky word games, parents of (profoundly) autistic children have been stuck in a nightmare for decades where everyone gaslights them about what happened and they are on their own to manage (often lifelong) care demands that most people cannot fathom without experiencing them firsthand.

Sadly, this issue is not unique to autism, and once you understand the basic formula, it’s quite infuriating to see how often selective ambiguity is abused by propagandists and their mouthpieces so they can “have their cake and eat it,” particularly because of how effectively it again and again manipulates the public.

The Secret Poll

One of the major challenges you encounter when entering the world of alternative narratives is how easy it is to get pulled into endorsing claims that have suggestive but not definitive evidence behind them and ultimately turn out to be false—so a major priority for me in this newsletter has always been to avoid doing that.

Because of this, I am always acutely aware of when definitive evidence emerges that corroborates what I was virtually certain was happening behind the scenes (e.g., recently I highlighted here and here how Ron Johnson’s Senate investigations provided definitive evidence the CDC and FDA knew the COVID vaccines were causing a host of severe injuries but suppressed that to protect the vaccine program).

Initially, I strongly suspected the Fabrizio poll was doctored as, beyond the reasons mentioned above (e.g., highly biased language and it contradicting every other poll), a subsequent poll MAHA commissioned from the same firm found that support for vaccine safety advocacy — while the least powerful of the MAHA issues tested — still made voters more likely to support Republican candidates, not less, which is a very different conclusion from ‘vaccine skepticism is bad politics.’”

However, a leaker just disclosed to journalists that Fabrizio conducted another (unpublished) poll prior to the December 2025 one which showed that:

•The number one concern of voters was the pharmaceutical companies having too much influence over medical research, the news, and politicians
•A clear majority of voters were concerned about vaccine mandates (hence why they needed to be relabeled as “established recommendations”).
•74% of voters were concerned that vaccines were shielded from liability for injuries.
•Seven out of ten voters want more research on vaccine toxicity.

So like the others, it showed there were widespread concerns about vaccine safety and that voters supported candidates addressing it. If we compare the language between the two and consider that the first was not released, two reasonable conclusions can be drawn:

1. The sponsors who commissioned it did not like the initial results they got and hence did not release them.

2. The initial poll was used as a prototype to develop a poll which could be structured get the results they wanted.

All of this touches upon a broader issue, which is that political polling is fraught with biases (either due to methodological errors of pollsters or deliberate actions by sponsors to get specific results they can use to promote their agenda). Because of this, analysts have gotten better at spotting “bad polls” that should be disregarded and certain polling companies have gradually established themselves as “reputable” because they consistently predict election results.

However, while reputational incentives exist, they have clear limits. Polls consistently underestimated Trump’s support in both 2016 and 2020 (contributing to a significant loss of public trust in the polling industry), and despite post-mortems identifying the errors, there were no meaningful consequences for the firms involved — because no federal law prohibits publishing a biased poll. While Trump is currently engaged in a protracted lawsuit against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer over a pre-election poll he alleges was deliberately falsified to influence the 2024 election (which might create a legal precedent), no major prosecution has ever resulted from standard polling bias. In practice, the worst a firm faces is reputational damage, and the worst a sponsor faces is public scrutiny — which they can sidestep entirely by never disclosing their involvement, as happened here.

Note: when the Daily Caller News Foundation broke the story of the secret October poll, they reported that Fabrizio’s firm did not respond to requests for comment.

Will History Repeat?

My own takeaway from all of this was that, once again, I felt history was effectively repeating.

Specifically, the inadequate COVID-19 response cost Trump the 2020 election (due to the media constantly blaming the failure to contain COVID and its deaths on Trump, lockdowns crashing the economy and lockdowns facilitating a dramatic expansion of mail-in voting—all of which is why many still believe COVID-19 was released to end his presidency). Through memoirs written by Scott Atlas and Peter Navarro (and watching the media throughout the pandemic), I learned that Trump had wanted to implement a variety of sensible policies that would have effectively reduced COVID-19 (and restored the economy), but each time he attempted to, he was shut down by the Federal health bureaucracy, who led by Fauci, worked in collusion with the media to create a public hysteria each time an attempt was made to shift towards a COVID policy besides lockdowns and continual repeated testing (which resulted in his advisors nixing every reasonable COVID-19 policy as they “did not want to rock the boat” before the election).

In tandem, while the media attacked every COVID-19 therapeutic even lightly proposed by the Trump administration, it strongly endorsed the COVID vaccines, and before long much of the entire administration did all they could to expedite the vaccine so it could be released prior to the election and the administration was pulled into a daily routine of waiting with bated breath for each new update on it. However, at the last moment, Pfizer delayed the vaccine (specifically announcing that their massive trial showed it was over 90% effective) until 6 days after the election, thereby preventing the wave of positive media coverage that would have likely swung the election (with Congressional investigators finding evidence indicating this was deliberate).

I hence believe a similar corralling is occurring here, where numerous angles of pressure are being used to push Trump away (or have his staffers push him away) from threatening the vaccine industry, and since most of the existing strategies they used in 2020 weren’t sufficient (e.g., obstruction from officials throughout the Federal health bureaucracy, misleading internal advice from trusted experts, and widespread opposition from both Democrat legislators and the media) as his team were now somewhat wise to them, new ones needed to be implemented such as doctored polls (and somehow convinced Trump’s trusted pollster to do the deed).

Fortunately, unlike 2020, our attempts to reach them were successful, and on May 10^th Trump resumed publicly espousing his “controversial” concerns on vaccine safety (albeit in a more tempered way) after being asked about the original vaccine safety commission he planned in 2016 that the pharmaceutical lobbyists successfully convinced his administration to shut down.

Note: Sharyl Attkisson was an award-winning CBS News investigative correspondent who during her tenure, conducted many of the final investigations ever permitted by the mainstream media into the dangers of vaccines (which can be viewed here). She continues to do excellent work as an independent journalist and can be followed on Substack (here) or Twitter/𝕏 (here).

Conclusion

What ultimately stands out from all of this is not just that a single poll was manufactured to silence vaccine reform — it’s that the people behind it believed they needed to. The very existence of the Fabrizio operation is an admission that the pharmaceutical industry knows it is losing the public, and that the only way to maintain the status quo is to prevent elected officials from discovering just how much support exists for changing it.

MAHA is not a fringe movement. It is one of the largest and most motivated voting blocs in the country, and as Cassidy’s historic defeat demonstrates, politicians who position themselves against it do so at their own peril. The polling data (all 25 surveys the industry hoped no one would compile) makes this unambiguous, and the voters who showed up to end a 20-year Senate career over this issue are not going away.

Fortunately, despite the enormous effort that went into creating this communication blockade, it appears to be failing. Trump’s return to publicly discussing vaccine safety in May — after months of being corralled away from the topic — signals that the wall erected between him and his base on this issue is beginning to crack. That crack exists because enough people refused to stay silent, and I want to sincerely thank each of you for what you have done to make that possible, as without this community and many others like it, that wall would still be firmly intact.

Unfortunately, the data manipulation seen in polling is crude and trivial compared to what routinely occurs in clinical trials, where the financial stakes are orders of magnitude greater and, unlike elections, no immediate real-world outcome exists to unmask the deception. In the next article, I will use the Fabrizio poll as a springboard to walk through the far more sophisticated — and far more consequential — tactics the pharmaceutical industry uses to doctor the research all of medicine depends upon.

A recently updated index of all articles published in the Forgotten Side of Medicine (including the DMSO ones) can be viewed here. Additionally, to learn how other readers have benefitted from this publication and the community it has created, their feedback can be viewed here.

• As decisions always have pros and cons, making the correct one is often quite challenging. One framework, “expected value” (EV), solves this puzzle by calculating the relative probability of a good (positive) and bad (negative) outcome.

• In medicine, while frameworks like EV should be used to guide medical policies and clinical decisions, they frequently are not, resulting in practices like mass COVID vaccination which have explicitly negative EVs being adopted and then held to regardless of public pushback or evidence to the contrary.

• Much of this stems from our widespread societal faith that large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the definitive arbiter of scientific truth, despite their numerous shortcomings. In contrast, valid and affordable approaches for determining scientific truth are continually marginalized, making it nearly impossible to “prove” competing therapies work or that sanctioned therapies have serious harms.

• Much of this originated from two subjective linguistic interpretations which the FDA then used to prohibit the public’s access to life-changing (but non-commercializable) therapies like DMSO and protect its industry sponsors—which as DMSO stories in this article show, has created profound consequences that have been well-hidden from all of us.

• This article will explore how this dysfunctional dynamic has harmed the health of America, meaningful changes that could preserve the vital functions of the FDA while simultaneously preventing it from sabotaging America’s health, and the changing political winds we’ve helped create which are gradually forcing those changes to happen.

The majority of decisions in life aren’t clear cut as they have both an upside and a downside (or multiple upsides and downsides). However, rather than being fully cognizant of the complexity of the decision, the human mind will typically narrow the picture and see only one side of the coin to reduce this large cognitive load. Many perpetually unresolved political conflicts essentially result from this, as each side emotionally primes their adherents to focus on the arguments in favor of their position and those which undermine the other side, resulting in both sides having a view of reality where their side is correct and the other is irredeemably wrong—which in some cases holds true, but typically is not.

One of my favorite frameworks for encapsulating this paradigm is the biostatistics concept of “sensitivity and specificity,” which denote how likely a test is to catch something that is there (sensitivity) and how likely it is not to overshoot and only identify things that are actually there (specificity). The value of this framework (beyond providing an informed way to choose medical tests) is that it emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between the two, as if one is increased (e.g., more aggressively screening for something), the other decreases (e.g., that screen will have a higher rate of false positives).

Because of this, ideally, the sensitivity and specificity of a test (and what will then be done with either result) should be appropriate to a patient’s clinical situation and in parallel, work is always done to improve the tests themselves so better balances between sensitivity and specificity can be met. In contrast, in overly politicized issues (e.g., criminal justice), the focus always ends up being on maximizing sensitivity OR specificity rather than finding a reasonable compromise between the two, which maximizes both as much as is feasible.

However, the reality is that you will frequently be confronted with situations where there is a less than ideal balance of upsides and downsides (e.g., sensitivity and specificity) between the two options, but a choice nonetheless must be made. Fortunately, due to how common these situations are, effective decision making strategies have been developed and refined.

Predicting Expected Values

The classic mathematical formula used to “solve” these situations is expected value (EV), which essentially calculates “on average, how much will this situation benefit or harm me.”

This translates to (magnitude of outcome 1 * probability of outcome 1) + (magnitude of outcome 2 * probability of outcome 2), and this is repeated for all possible outcomes (e.g., it could go to calculating outcome 10) so that the total probabilities add up to 1. So for example, if you had a situation where you paid a dollar to flip 2 coins and then got 99 cents for each “heads” you got, the EV for the four outcomes (HH, HT, TH, TT) would be (1.98*0.25)+(0.99*0.25)+(0.99*0.25)+(0*0.25) or $0.99. Given that your cost to play this game is $1.00, it is hence “not a good idea” to play the game as there is a negative DV (on average you will lose money).

Many businesses (beyond just casinos), in turn, are essentially structured so that the EV of the transactions they make are positive for them (and negative for the customer) hence (excluding highly unusual circumstances) ensuring a steady stream of profit which sustains the business or industry.

While everyone has a general grasp of EV (e.g., if you saw a dollar bill fly into the freeway, almost no one runs onto the highway to try to grab it as the risk of being hit by a car makes the EV very bad there), a few points are critical to understand about it:

First, most people do not have a strong grasp of probabilities, and as such, predatory industries will frequently mislead them about the actual probabilities, leading them to believe bad EV choices are actually good EV choices.

Second, rather than being a simple binary calculation, EV calculations are often complicated because there are many potential outcomes (variables).

Third, EV can encompass a variety of outcomes beyond financial gains or losses, at which point it becomes harder to fit into a numerical formula.

For example, many of the policies that were pushed on us during COVID-19 essentially arose from people being implicitly presented with erroneous EV formulas by the mass media, and then extrapolating decisions off those formulas which appeared beneficial (positive EV) but in reality were harmful (negative EV) with a correct formula.

To illustrate, the odds of a child dying from COVID-19 were effectively 0 (and in the small number who died, there was almost always a severe underlying condition), so no real benefit could be derived from vaccinating, whereas injuries (including fatal ones) routinely occurred. So, the EV of a child taking the COVID vaccine was always negative (as there was no “positive” outcome, whereas a negative one could occur).

Likewise, when the Pfizer NEJM paper came out (which made many, including most of the medical profession, decide they had to get the vaccine no matter what since it was “95% effective!” and would end the pandemic), the paper itself stated:

1. Adverse reactions were much more common in the vaccine than the placebo group (27% vs 12% for a direct event and 21% vs. 5% for an unrelated adverse event)

2. In contrast, for COVID infections, those same symptoms occurred, typically 1-2 times as frequently (sometimes 3x).

3. 8/18,198 (0.044%) vaccinated developed COVID and 162/18,325 (0.88%) of the unvaccinated developed COVID (a 20-fold decrease).

4. Seven days after the initial dose, 1/18,198 vaccinated and 9/18,325 unvaccinated developed severe COVID (COVID typically requiring hospital care).
   Note: this metric was changed to after the first vaccine (whereas the primary efficacy measurement ones were after the second vaccine), since 5 of the severe infections in the placebo group happened prior to the seven day post vaccine cut-off (which was hidden in the appendix). Had this standard been used for all COVID infections too, it would have been (39+8)/18,198 vs. (82+162)/18,325 (a 5.16 fold decrease falling far short of the “95% effective” benchmark), whereas had the study’s primary criteria been used here, it would have been 1/18,198 vs. 4/18,325 (a 4-fold rather than 9-fold decrease)—illustrating how studies always change their metrics and criteria in whatever manner makes the product look best.

5. 4 serious adverse events attributed to vaccination were reported (shoulder injury from injection, right axillary lymphadenopathy, paroxysmal ventricular arrhythmia, and right leg paresthesia).

6. 2 vaccine recipients died and 4 placebo recipients died (all from causes unrelated to COVID-19).

7. Nothing in this study evaluated transmission.

When I read this paper, I was jaw dropped, as it was blatantly stating there was an extremely negative EV for the vaccine as you were trading the symptoms from a COVID infection for a 1/119 chance (0.88%-0.044%) of not getting COVID, so if you assumed COVID-19 symptoms on average were twice as frequent as vaccine symptoms you were increasing your likelihood of getting ill 60-fold by vaccinating (along with the injection site specific symptoms only seen from the vaccine) in return for a possible halving of COVID symptoms (although in reality, people often felt far worse post-vaccine than during COVID). If you attempted to counterweight that by the major benefits of vaccine, the most important one, death, was not prevented, while the medium one “severe COVID” had required between 2,293 to 6,123 vaccinations to prevent one instance (with the higher figure arising if a consistent metric had been used by Pfizer), and the only other possible justification for vaccinating (reducing transmission) had not been tested in the paper.

Furthermore, since fairly consistent methods are used to doctor papers, I was relatively certain:
•Vaccine efficacy had been overstated (e.g., COVID cases in vaccine recipients were not reported) and severe injuries in vaccine recipients also were not reported—both of which were later corroborated by numerous trial participants and trial researchers.
Note: while the trials were happening (inspired by what I’d learned happened in the Gardasil trials where many of the reported adverse events were magically erased), I joined online support groups for the trial participants and noted that many of the adverse events they reported did not appear in the final trial report, and that the overall severity from a reaction to the vaccine was significantly worse than what I typically saw people experience with COVID-19. My suspicion adverse reactions were covered up in the trial solidified once the vaccine hit the market, because almost immediately, I had multiple patients each day seeking help for severe and unusual vaccine reactions and people I knew from around the country began contacting me to ask if the vaccine could cause strokes or heart attack (as it had happened to someone they knew)—and most importantly, my sample size for these early reports was far smaller than the 18,198 vaccine recipients in the trial.

•Any benefits not reported in this paper (e.g., transmission or reducing death) would never be found for this vaccine as every possible attempt had been made to exaggerate the benefits and they could only decline from this point forward (e.g., before long everyone would have immunity to the original strain and COVID-19 would mutate to something no longer covered by the vaccine).
Note: at a six month follow up, deaths were slightly higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated group. Likewise, despite there being no evidence that the vaccine prevented transmission (and its symptom-reducing design arguing against this even being possible) health authorities and the media widely promoted the vaccine as preventing transmission to pressure people to vaccinate, until real life data forced them to backtrack on their claim.

•Flipping the criteria for severe COVID-19 (compared to minor COVID) to make the vaccine look better demonstrated that data manipulation was occurring in the paper (hence casting everything else into doubt). Later, as I started noticing a lot of people become severe ill with COVID-19 (and in many cases dying) immediately after vaccinating (including individuals who had minor PCR confirmed asymptomatic infections), I realized this issue had most likely been detected by Pfizer and hence why the criteria for evaluating COVID hospitalizations was changed to “seven days post the second vaccination” (which resulted in many vaccine COVID-19 deaths being labeled as “unvaccinated” deaths).
Note: “disease provocation” due to vaccine-induced immune suppression is a longstanding problem with vaccination (e.g., a good case can be made many of the pre-polio vaccine polio outbreaks were due to vaccination, COVID-19 was the two most common fatal COVID vaccine reactions reported to VAERS and longitudinal data showed the more COVID vaccines you got the more likely you were to get COVID-19)—all of which is discussed here.

Put differently, my immediate thought after looking at the paper was that if after all their best attempts to make the vaccine look as good as possible, it was still this bad, it meant the actual data was likely appalling. Remarkably however, when I discussed this paper my physician colleagues, they could only “see” the 95% effective figure (the 20-fold relative reduction) and all the other points I raised, which were in the paper, went in one ear and out the other, hence illustrating that most people simply do not have a good grab on probabilistic reasoning (outside of those in competitive fields where optimizing EV choices is necessary for success).

Note: the formula which goes hand in hand with EV is Bayes’ theorem [P(A|B) = [P(B|A) × P(A)] / P(B)], which provides a method for updating the probability of something being true as new evidence becomes available. In medicine, it is essential for correctly interpreting diagnostic tests (e.g., understanding that a positive result from a screening test in a low-risk population is more likely to be a false positive than a true one), yet remarkably few physicians actively apply it in their clinical reasoning^1,2—which in turn leads to a significant amount of overtesting (some of which in fairness, they know is not justified but is done to avoid potentially being sued), overdiagnosis, and unnecessary treatment.

Finally, it should be noted that the EV of the COVID vaccines was much easier to calculate than that of most other vaccines in use (because there was a much smaller set of variables and much more available data on those variables). For example, to begin calculating the benefit of a routine vaccination, you first need to start with:

Then you need to weigh that against the risks of each vaccine in the series (as later ones typically cause more injuries), with separate calculations done for each degree of injury severity, along with subgroup susceptibility (as some people are much more sensitive to vaccine injury than others) and then once that is done, somehow assess the cumulative effect of all the different vaccines being taken (as vaccine toxicity and immune dysregulation are cumulative). However, rather than try to engage in that complex calculation, the medical industry’s solution has been to assume all vaccines are “magically safe and effective” and like the COVID vaccine, give both incredibly optimistic models of efficacy while only focusing on a few inconsequential reactions (e.g., temporary injection site reactions).

As such, much in the same way doctors were convinced the COVID-19 vaccines would end COVID because it was “95% effective” (when nothing of the sort then happened) and that the vaccine was much safer than getting COVID (despite trial data indicating the opposite), virtually no knowledge exists on the actual EV of most vaccines because they were given a simplified formula to calculate them which only highlights a few key variables industry wants people to focus (which arrive at a high EV). This sales strategy, in turn, is quite effective as it allows people to avoid the hard mental work of having to complete a complex calculation (hence appealing to human laziness), while simultaneously appealing to the human ego by providing the illusion of mastery and authority in the area (by regurgitating the simple arguments used to authoritatively enshrine a positive EV for the vaccines).

Note: a while back I tried to calculate the risks and benefits of each childhood vaccine (as they vary immensely with some being much worse than others)—all of which is detailed here.

Lastly, it should be acknowledged that the original emergency use authorizations for the COVID vaccines were granted under the premise that no other treatment existed, the vaccine's massive potential benefit justified the existing uncertainty over its effectiveness, and that authorization could be modified as more data emerged. However, not only did other treatments already exist, the FDA then shredded the EV of the vaccines by continually doubling down as more and more evidence of ineffectiveness and harm accumulated.

Stagnating Science

The following holds true for our current society:

•It highly values science and scientific truth to the point that many people worship it in place of religion.

•In order for science to be “valid” (and widely promoted by the media) two bars typically must be cleared—a large randomized control trial is conducted that arrives at a statistically significant corroborating outcome and the scientific authorities must bless a given scientific conclusion.

In some cases, this is a very helpful framework, but in many instances, it is extremely vulnerable to abuse. This is because:

•Large RCTs are extremely expensive (tens of millions of dollars), to the point that they typically can only be financed by national governments, massive pseudo-non profits (e.g., the Gates Foundation), or pharmaceutical companies.

•Any controversial study that somehow makes it through that ideological filter will still often be routinely dismissed by the medical authorities (and in many cases retracted once too many people start citing it).

•Studies that do not meet this threshold are very easy to dismiss, and will virtually always be dismissed if they arrive at a conclusion that threatens a major interest.
Note: it is very common for the abstract or conclusion of a study to provide a summary which contradicts the study’s results if the actual data is “politically incorrect” or “undesirable” (as most people only ever read summaries). Fortunately, AI now makes it very easy to expose this tactic.

•Since most scientists are dependent upon either grants or pharmaceutical funding (the only two sources of funding for costly research), they quickly learn they cannot pursue “controversial research” and hence do not produce research that will tank the rest of their career.

Because of this, we’ve run into a situation where most research is highly conservative and incrementally builds upon existing discoveries rather than making new revolutionary discoveries which advance science and change paradigms. For example, this is how Gerald Pollack aptly described our current situation.

Note: anyone who has worked within research institutions over the past few decades has watched the space for unconventional inquiry steadily shrink — to the point that Nobel laureate Peter Higgs remarked he doubted any modern university would hire him, as the solitary work that produced the Higgs boson would never survive today’s academic culture. But in medicine, the problem goes further: institutional review processes that were designed to protect research subjects have increasingly become gatekeepers of orthodoxy, making it nearly impossible to obtain approval for even simple human studies on anything deemed controversial (which was incredibly frustrating for me and many others to deal with). This is why so much of the compelling research on therapies like DMSO comes from an era before these barriers existed or from countries where they still don’t.

Because of this, many major problems we face (which I believe are solvable or know have already been solved) remain major issues and we are instead continually told to provide more funding for science so those solutions can be found in the future, highlighting the unfortunate principle I discussed recently—that organizations will rarely produce solutions to the problems they continually receive funding to “solve” as doing so dries up that funding.

Note: after publishing that article, numerous readers sent me articles and interviews about the Los Angeles mayoral race, such as this interview with Joe Rogan, since the abject failures there to deal with major issues facing the city, despite vast amounts of money being spent, embody the principle I outlined. Given how egregious the situation they described is and how different it sounds from what Los Angeles was like when I visited the city roughly ten years ago, I am genuinely curious if what’s described here matches the experience of readers living in the area.

Additionally, after I learned about this, my first thought was “what specific drugs are causing people there to ‘act like zombies’?” (since the wounds looked similar to those seen from Krokodil—a corrosive homemade opioid that caused a lot of issues in Russia until over the its precusor was banned). I found out it was due to all the fentanyl being cut with xylazine, a vasoconstricting (hence wound causing) powerful animal tranquilizer (sedative) which extends the high (while putting you in a zombified stupor). Most notably, this practice persists because there are no legal restrictions on the sale of xylazine (so numerous ways exist to easily and cheaply procure it), as bipartisan efforts since 2023^1,2,3 to schedule (restrict) it have failed to advance through Congress, and while numerous states (recognizing the problems xylazine causes) have independently scheduled it, California has not.

Placebo Effects

Since the expectation or belief something can help you will cause people’s health (or their perception of their health) to improve, particularly on subjective metrics like depression (or things like blood pressure which shift in response to the state of the autonomic nervous system), a possibility always exists that the benefits from a therapy are actually due to the expectation the therapy will work rather than the therapy independently doing anything. However, while this concept is broadly recognized (with it frequently being used to discuss all positive results seen from alternative therapies), a few things are not widely recognized about it:

•Because of how strong the faith our culture holds in doctors is, a strong case be made that many of the benefits patients receive from medical care actually result from the placebo effect. Conversely, reverse “nocebos” also exist, where patients being told something will bad happen to them makes them become ill or accelerate the progression of their illness (often termed medical hexing).^1,2,3

•The placebo effect varies widely depending on the condition, the type of outcome measured, and the treatment context. It is often quite strong for subjective symptoms that people can directly feel—such as chronic pain (commonly providing about 30% pain relief), depression, anxiety, fatigue, and nausea—where it frequently accounts for half or more of the total improvement seen in drug trials (with estimates reaching 62% or higher for antidepressants and pain medications). So for certain classes of therapies, more than half of the benefit attributed to them actually comes from the placebo effect.

•In contrast, it has little to no meaningful effect on objective biological measures like tumor size, blood sugar control in diabetes, or the underlying progression of most diseases, although it can trigger real brain changes such as dopamine release in Parkinson’s patients or modest shifts in heart rate, blood pressure, and immune function through conditioning.

•The placebo response is much stronger when the treatment feels more dramatic or “real”—such as sham surgery or injections. Likewise, with antidepressants, it has been consistently shown that if they are compared to active placebos (which mimic their adverse effects) rather than neutral placebos (which do nothing), almost all of the benefits attributed to antidepressants disappear.
Note: this may be in part due to the fact researchers, once they know patients are taking a test drug, have been found to overestimate subjective patient improvements by roughly 36% (which is close to the magnitude of benefit attributed to many psychiatric drugs).

•Certain types of placebo effects are mediated through endogenous opioids (endorphins) because naltrexone (an opioid blocker) will block the pain relief to a lesser extent depression relief medications produce.
Note: this is likely why low dose naltrexone therapy (which increases endorphins) is useful for a wide number of illnesses.

RCT Fundamentalism

Prior to the thalidomide near-disaster, the FDA was tasked with regulating drug safety rather than efficacy, with this limited regulatory enforcement power here leading to a broad swathe of misbehavior (e.g., misleading labeling and over-the-top claims) by the drug companies. The nation uproar around thalidomide, in turn, initiated a series of hearings to craft legislation to create regulatory frameworks to prevent this from ever happening again by giving the FDA broad powers to regulate both safety and efficacy

As research by the drug companies was atrocious at the time (e.g., highly anecdotal, not controlled at all) a provision was put into the 1962 law which allowed the FDA to block drugs from being marketed if “There is a lack of substantial evidence that the drug will have the effect it purports” with substantial evidence “consisting of adequate and well-controlled investigations…by qualified experts.”

This process created three major problems:

•It galvanized the agency to lean towards specificity on drug approvals (as many in the FDA wanted credit for stopping the next thalidomide) and drug approvals slowed to a crawl (while becoming exponentially expensive), leading to widespread criticisms of the FDA obstructing necessary drugs from reaching the market that have persisted ever since (e.g., complaints I’ve read in 1980 hearings are virtually identical to what I see senators say today).
Note: currently, the cost to bring a new drug to market is estimated to be between 0.98-4.54 billion dollars, which makes it impossible for any unpatentable product ever to get FDA approval.

•Secondly, it galvanized the FDA into rapidly establishing its authority and creating numerous divisions to “police” questionable drugs without the organization being structured to effectively or appropriately administer that authority (which led to perpetual mismanagement, chaos, and frequent abuse of that power).

•Third, the FDA chose to define “well-controlled” as a robust (increasingly large) double-blind trial and relentlessly held to it regardless of the public or Congressional pushback they got (except in cases where they wanted to push a drug through).

This decision, effectively instilled the culture of RCT fundamentalism, and created a climate where most doctors and government officials would habitually dismiss the results of a therapy if it did not have a costly RCT behind it, and in the years that followed, science became exponentially more expensive (and hence dependent upon an extremely limited source of funders), new discoveries stagnated, and credible unorthodox research became harder and harder to conduct.

The EV of RCTs

To be clear, RCTs are genuinely valuable—they do gradually refine the standard of care and over time sort out which approaches actually work, which is something no other method does as reliably. The issue is not with RCTs themselves, but with using the absence of an RCT as justification for blocking therapies which have compelling evidence behind them.

With that in mind, whenever I see this topic discussed, the key facet I almost never see mentioned is what the EV of this standard is, as we are effectively trading, eliminating random spontaneous improvements and placebo effects, for making research costly to the point that most of the science we want done can never be conducted.

Assuming this dynamic is the root cause of our present state of affairs, the net EV is not very good as each year more and more is spent on healthcare in the United States (in the most recent 2024 figures, 5.3 trillion or 18% of all spending), but simultaneously, we have the worst health outcomes amongst the affluent nations.

If we look at it more granularly, while accounting for the placebo effect somewhat increases the accuracy of test results, the following issues emerge:

1. The immense cost of conducting drug trials essentially guarantees that sponsors will break the blinding and doctor the data to get a positive result to secure approval (or simply not publish the study if the results are too incriminating). Because of this, the funding bias introduced often greatly outweighs the benefit gained by counteracting the placebo effect and random variation. Unfortunately, while regulators are extremely strict on many aspects of bringing a drug to market, they are surprisingly lax about addressing overt clinical trial fraud (e.g., despite numerous whistleblower complaints and citizen petitions, the FDA never investigated the fraud throughout the COVID-19 trials). All of this was best demonstrated by a definitive 2017 Cochrane review which found that industry-sponsored drug studies were 34% more likely to report favorable overall conclusions than non-industry-sponsored studies.
Note: NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya has launched a major initiative to fund and incentivize replication studies, directly reducing incentives for fraud and data manipulation. This represents the most significant systemic change since the 2007 FDA Amendments Act, which mandated prospective public registration and results reporting for many clinical trials on ClinicalTrials.gov, making it harder (not not impossible) to hide negative trial results. This, in turn, is a key reason pre-2007 research conclusions are viewed by many as far less reliable.

2. With drugs that meet approval, the magnitude of benefit, while “statistically significant” is often quite small (and likely non-existing once data manipulation is accounted for). Because of this, while accounting for the placebo effect can slightly shift the overall efficacy calculus, the net result isn’t meaningful and would not justify taking a costly drug with real side effects that patients do not want. Put differently, while large well-powered trials can detect small improvements which would otherwise be undetectable, small improvements often equate to negligible clinical benefits for the patients who will later take the drugs. This underscores a critical point; if a therapy provides a large enough benefit to provide a meaningful improvement for patients, it should not require an extravagant trial to detect it. For example, statins (which cause noticeable and sometimes debilitating side effects for around 20% of users), assuming industry RCTs are honest, will extend a man’s (but not woman’s) life by 3-4 days after they’ve been taken for 5 years, which is not a large enough EV for me to feel justified in recommending them to a patient.
Note: in many cases, multiple disease processes will create the same “illness” and a drug will only work on certain subsets of the disease (hence why in aggregate the net benefit is quite small, even though in the correct patients, it’s much larger). Unfortunately, the way our regulatory system is set up (and the way doctors are trained to think), identifying those subgroups is not prioritized, and once approval is obtained, the manufacturer has no incentive to limit sales by marketing only to the primary groups that benefit from the therapy.

3. Another Cochrane Review (which is considered to be the most definitive appraisal of medical evidence), in 2014, found that smaller (affordable) unblinded observational trials typically yielded the same results as large RCTs. This underscores another critical point; if a therapy provides a large enough benefit to justify giving it to patients, it should be possible to observe patient’s experiencing improvements from it and for any clinician to produce a small study demonstrating that.

Each of these hence argues that insisting on RCTs to determine the efficacy of a therapy has a negative EV. Instead we have a rather grotesque system where:

•Patients (and dissident researchers) are told to deny what they see with their own eyes as any observation they make which deviates from what the RCTs show must be a product of confirmation bias and false. This amongst other things, is one of the most common methods used to gaslight patients who suffer severe injuries from pharmaceutical drugs (which the manufacturers successfully lobbied to keep from being acknowledged side effects) and the most common tool used to shut down any competing therapy, even in cases where the competing therapy shows a clear and massive benefit whereas the existing one does not help the majority of patients.

•A massive “pay-to-play” scheme is created where it is nearly impossible to create “medical truth” without spending a lot of money to do so, thereby making medical dogmas shift to whatever the industry wants to be true rather than what is true or objectively helps patients. Furthermore, because of how much money is in this, and how many people are dependent on it at every level (researchers needing funding, pharmaceutical-funded experts needing prestige, regulatory bodies needing fees from drug manufacturers, regulators wanting high-paying pharmaceutical jobs in the future etc.), there is so much inertia behind the system that it is extremely hard to break free from it regardless of how irrational and illogical it seems.

•Therapies that have a massive and dramatic effect greatly exceeding what you would typically see with a therapy are dismissed for having “no evidence,” even in cases where the magnitude of benefit greatly exceeds anything which could possibly be attributed to the placebo effect.

Note: another less appreciated aspect of RCT fundamentalism is that while RCTs are well suited for testing the effect of one pill versus another, they are not well suited for testing therapies that are difficult to make true placebos for, and as a result, many things I know have a high degree of efficacy have been perpetually stuck in the limbo of having “no evidence” because the ways they can be tested do not conform to this model. Likewise, regulators are extremely insistent on therapies having a biochemical mechanistic basis to secure approval (even though in many cases—such as with SSRI antidepressants—that mechanism is later disproven) something many natural therapies (which utilize biophysics) do not have.

Finally, because it costs so much to prove a drug works for something, after obtaining the easiest approval, as this whistleblower shows, manufacturers will frequently then market the drugs for uses besides their approved indication (greatly increasing their total revenue), and at worst, occasionally get manageable fines for doing so. On one hand this is “fair” because doctors should have the right to treat as the deem appropriate (rather than having to follow strict guidelines) but it simultaneously illustrates how the FDA’s high bar for efficacy serves to protect industry monopolies rather than the public.

Note: my colleague Pierre Kory believes repurposing (find new clinically relevant uses) for already approved off-patent drugs (e.g., using ivermectin for cancer) is the weak point in this system as it bypasses both the FDA’s blockade on competing therapies that can’t afford costly approvals and does so at an affordable prices (since by being off-patent, high prices can’t be charged for them).

The Best Available Evidence

Medicine has long been an extremely dogmatic profession that is resistant to discarding existing (harmful) practices or adopting new ideas. To combat this, in the 1990s reformers introduced the idea of “evidence-based medicine” with the premise that the “best available evidence” rather than expert opinion should dictate medical care. This well-intentioned concept took off and quickly became entrenched within the medical field. Unfortunately, the industry realized this new dogma was an immense opportunity for them, as they could simply buy out the evidence (e.g., by funding only costly RCTs that supported their bottom line, controlling what medical journals would publish, and buying out the expert opinions that appraised the evidence).

All of this, I believe ultimately resulted from (much in the same way “well-controlled” was selectively defined by the FDA) “the best available evidence” being defined to mean “evidence that meets a statutory threshold” (e.g., large RCTs) rather than “the best evidence currently available for assessing a topic or clinical question” that was described in the original definition.^1,2

Because of this, many topics with clearly compelling evidence are disregarded because no large RCT has been done, even though those RCTs will never conducted. For example, with vaccines, a longstanding argument by the industry is that all the data which shows vaccines increase the rats of chronic illness 3 to 7 fold (detailed here) should be discounted because they were not corroborated by large RCTs while simultaneously, large RCTs have been stonewalled on vaccines because “vaccines are so safe and effective it is unethical to ever not give them to children” (in the placebo group) and we are instead expected to default to the incredibly optimistic models used to evaluate how much benefit they provide to society.

If the actual definition of “best available evidence” being used, all of the observational studies which found high rates of harm from vaccines (greatly exceeding anything that could result from uncontrolled statistical artifacts or placebo effects) would be taken as the gold standard until better evidence (e.g., large RCTs) was produced which could displace the currently existing data. However, since the definitions have been flipped, a status quo exists in which the compelling harm of vaccination is allowed, and no “credible” research will ever be conducted on the topic.

Note: one of Secretary Kennedy’s initiatives has been to conduct that research, which predictably has been widely attacked by Senators and mainstream outlets like The New York Times for spurious reasons, such as it being too expensive, too difficult to assess accurately, and unnecessary because we already know vaccines are safe.

The EV of DMSO

I value the incredible support many have given this newsletter, so my goal has been to maximize the value I provide to people who take the time to read it. For this reason, out of the myriad of topics I write about, I’ve tried to focus on topics which are applicable to a large number of people (or fold narrow focus ones into broader articles everyone gets value from), and prioritize those where I have a useful and novel insight to offer (which for many medical topics I don’t as I largely agree with the existing consensus or simply am not familiar enough with topic to feel I can state with relative certainty an alternative approach has real merit).

As DMSO has one of the highest EVs I know of (particularly since it doesn’t require specialized care to utilize), over the last year and a half, I have worked to make a strong case that DMSO is an “umbrella remedy” which transforms the management of dozens of challenging conditions. In turn, tens and quite possibly hundreds of thousands of readers were inspired to try it, the majority of whom had positive, and frequently unbelievable results for a wide range of debilitating and often incurable ailments, while in contrast, serious side effects are virtually non-existent from the therapy, while the minor ones are fairly tolerable and reverse once DMSO is stopped (corroborating the high EV).

All of that was possible because so much scientific evidence exists corroborating DMSO’s value in a myriad of conditions, and once I started posting about it, a large number of readers here wanted to try it. This hence has left me in a rather challenging position—I feel a duty to present all the evidence (and the remarkable experiences readers have shared with me) but due to how much there is, there is no possible way to do so without it being too long. As such, I’ve tried to compress the information as much as possible down to the salient or overlapping details and then subsequently rewrite the articles in shorter formats which briefly mention much of the extensive data packed into the longer articles.

However, while that “works” I simultaneously don’t like doing it because it forces me to write fairly sterile articles devoid of the human impact and heart centered connection I try to maintain. For instance, in the most recent DMSO article I wrote:

There were many profound stories like I wanted to fully cover, but instead had to heavily abridge as my primary duty in writing these is to provide the data which can shift the needle on how DMSO is treated. For example:

A college student with severe injuries including a C4-C5 fracture who began DMSO nearly two years post-injury gradually regained sensation, limb movement, and hand function over the following years—whose progress halted when the FDA unconscionably revoked DMSO's medical use—but nonetheless healed enough to graduate

Was meant to synopsize this passage from a 1980 book on the history of DMSO:

“Quadriplegia is the saddest thing that happens to people,” [Stanley] Jacob said. “It occurs most often to the young and healthy — to soldiers fighting our wars, to youngsters driving, to athletes in contact sports.

“As a quadriplegic, you lie in bed, a total vegetable, unable to move any of your extremities. Your mind functions, but you can’t pass urine. You can’t have a bowel movement without help. You are totally dependent upon someone else to perform the basic functions — to keep you alive.”

I had asked who stood to gain most from DMSO.

“As I get to know the quadriplegics, ever so many of them eventually say to me, ‘You know, Dr. Jacob, I couldn’t even commit suicide.’”

At this time, he was treating eight quadriplegics, and of them only one had a recently incurred injury. He felt, as most doctors do, that treatment is more fruitful in new conditions than in old ones. The one fresh case was that of a sixteen-year-old girl, a fine athlete, who dove off a board and landed on her neck on the bottom of the pool.

“Her doctor was pessimistic but willing to try almost anything that offered a glimmer of hope. She was a complete quadriplegic — utterly helpless.”

She was on DMSO for an entire year. Gradually — one by one, it seemed — her organs began to function again. Eventually she walked. And now she is in college, doing very well.

It was 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 5, 1963. Grey Keinsley, eighteen, was driving from Greeley, where he was a freshman at the University of Northern Colorado, to Denver, where he was going to apply for a summer job with the State Highway Department. The Rocky Mountain sunshine and bracing air flooded through the open sunroof of his VW, and it might have been that open top that saved his life. To this day he doesn’t know what happened.

They lifted the athletic body off the barbed-wire fence where it had been hanging, limp and battered, and took him — still breathing but unconscious — to the Community Hospital at Longmont. The doctor said, “Have this boy’s family get here without delay.”

The way it looked to the doctors: the numerous bruises and cuts would heal in time — if there was time. One could survive the concussion. But the broken neck was another thing. X-rays showed a fracture between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae, a spinal cord block at that vital link in communications between the brain and the body below the neck.

When Grey heard his parents’ voices, he came out of the coma momentarily, but he was delirious for weeks.

Mrs. Dorothy M. Keinsley of Littleton, Colorado, told me of Grey’s struggle. His father was in the U.S. Army, so Grey had lived around the world. In the United States, he had been a babysitter, grocery sacker, carry-out boy, delivery boy for newspapers and heavy appliances, hamburger cook, yard worker, snow shoveler, and car washer. He had attended schools in Japan and, for three years, played on the football team at the American High School in Poitiers, France. He had been an Eagle Scout and junior scoutmaster. He said his religion was “workable.”

Grey liked girls and they liked him. He was a good student, played trombone in the high school band, danced well, sang well, knew what to do about a sick car, and stood six-feet-one. After his catastrophic accident he said, “Mom, the best part of me is intact — my mind.”

Grey was admitted to Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver — a fringe benefit for Army families — and stayed there for six and a half months. When they transferred him to Craig Rehabilitation Hospital in West Denver, he could make only shoulder motions and flail his arms. They fitted him with carbon dioxide-powered braces on both hands, and he was able to come home for Christmas 1963.

One day the neurosurgeon asked to speak with Dorothy. “The neurosurgeon told me that henceforth Grey’s only motion would be to move his head from side to side and grin,” Mrs. Keinsley said. “If this was true, I knew Grey’s life-span would be very short. But I didn’t believe it.”

A few weeks later, the neurosurgeon gave it to Grey straight. Grey listened attentively, thought for a minute, then said to the doctor, “One day I will swing my legs off my bed and offer to bet you I am going to walk. At that time, put your money where your mouth is now.”

Mrs. Keinsley saw it this way: “We have not had adequate finances to be classified as affluent, but we’ve had twenty years of training in frugality, and this made me astute in managing.” The Keinsley mother and son got help from several sources, but all of them together didn’t quite pay the medical bills.

Mother and son drew heavily on one resource. Dorothy said, “Grey loves all life and the world. His pantheistic approach has served as a buffer against the cruelty of the world and the cruelty of man to man when adversity strikes.

“I have a strong faith that God will never give one a bigger burden than one can carry, although there have been times when I thought He punched my card twice.”

Grey read Ann Sullivan’s article about DMSO in Pageant magazine. The part about the rejuvenation of plants made him wonder: “If DMSO will do this for useless limbs on trees, what would it do for useless human limbs?” He wrote to Jacob, and his physician made the tests Jacob had required. On February 13, 1965, Jacob came to the Keinsleys’ home in Littleton and swabbed Grey’s neck with DMSO.

“The most dramatic change happened that first day,” Dorothy told me. “Grey had had a constant pain in his right shoulder from the time of the accident, and he had learned to live with it. Late that day, Grey discovered the pain had gone. He was almost incredulous. He expected the pain to return, but it never has.”

Other improvements were gradual, as Dr. Jacob had predicted they would be. One of the welcome changes was in his thermostat; until DMSO, it fluctuated between excessive heat and cold. His body temperature became normal.

Neurosurgeons and neurologists will say that there is some spontaneous return of function for the traumatic paraplegic — but only in the first two years following the injury. If significant improvement doesn’t occur within that time, it never will. There seemed to be no documented case to the contrary.

That principle is passé.

These are some of the battles as Dorothy recorded them, in Grey’s war:

•4/5/63 – The accident. Grey was expected to die. He lived in a respirator.

•2/5/64 – Leaves Craig Hospital and starts classes at the University of Colorado, Denver Center.

•2/13/65 – Starts DMSO treatments. Shoulder pain stops.

•5/1/65 – Temperature sensation stabilizes.

•6/1/65 – Healthy color replaces pallor. Grey feels fine and smells terrible (from DMSO). He is no longer constantly tired.

Return of major functions of the body:

•8/22/65 – Lifted both arms over his head and put on a T-shirt without help.

•9/12/65 – Pains in left hand and wrist. First since the accident.

•10/17/65 – Sensation to touch on right side of body starting to move below nipple line (2 to 23 inches).

•10/29/65 – Severe pains in right hip.

•11/1/65 – Sharp pains in upper left arm for several hours.

•11/9/65 – Severe pains in right hand and arm.

FDA banned use of DMSO.

Pains subsided in a few weeks, but he did not lose any of the improvements.

•11/6/67 – Stops wearing body brace (similar to a corset to support lower back).

•8/22/68 – Resumes DMSO.

•9/6/68 – Tingling sensation deep inside neck in area of lesion.

•10/9/68 – Feels heat in right hand from coffee cup — first time.

•11/16/68 – Moves right leg — feebly.

•12/11/68 – Exerts pressure shaking hands with right hand.

•12/31/68 – Sensation to touch on entire right side of body. It is spotty and not too clear.

•1/19/69 – Exerts very weak pressure with left hand.

•3/5/69 – Moves right thumb.

•4/1/69 – Raises right leg in bed.

•4/13/69 – Lifts his body slightly off the bed or wheelchair by using his arms locked at the elbows.

•6/6/69 – Grey receives his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.

•6/17/69 – Moves toes on both feet — weakly (through 8/12/69).

•10/12/69 – Moves left leg — feebly.

•1/1/70 – He writes by hand legibly and at length.

•8/17/71 – Grey received his master’s degree and began looking for a job, preferably in a bank.

The chronology omits mention of the many people and organizations who lent help of various sorts: the Mayfield Foundation, which supplied a hydraulic hoist (so his mother could lift him into the family car) and an electric typewriter; cab drivers who gave him a lift; state transportation to and from school; and student grants for his tuition.

The people most responsible for Grey’s victory were his mother and his sister, Pamela. Pamela worked while attending school and helped her mother a great deal with household and nursing chores.

Mrs. Keinsley had to get up at five every morning and spend two hours preparing Grey for school. He required a catheter or condom to void, and even with the hydraulic lift, getting Grey into the car and into school was an arduous job. At first, Dorothy attended classes with him and took notes for him.

Grey supplemented the meager family income — from welfare, child support, and Pam’s babysitting jobs — by grading papers and tutoring students. This brought in twenty-five or thirty dollars a month. He dictated his comments and grades to his mother, who was necessarily his almost constant companion.

When Grey first proposed writing to Jacob, Dorothy hesitated. She was afraid that if Jacob rejected the idea, it would crush her son. She had earlier received three flat and emphatic medical opinions that her son would be completely helpless for the rest of his days. She asked Grey: Could he take it if Dr. Jacob was negative? They sent off the letter to Portland.

In insisting that her son would find help, Dorothy Keinsley did not delight all the doctors. “One doctor bellowed at me like a bull moose in rutting season,” she said. “’Don’t you know your son is paralyzed?’ he screamed. I explained that no one knew it as well as I.”

Mrs. Keinsley said that Jacob not only did not charge for his services, but, out of his own pocket, paid the bills for the exhaustive medical examinations, which were done locally. Jacob makes a house call at the Keinsleys’ whenever he is in Colorado.

When three years of supplication by himself and many others had brought no sign of relenting from the FDA, Jacob decided to resume treatments anyway. He told Grey he thought that injections into the back of the neck, in the vicinity of the scarred spinal cord, might speed up recovery. He asked if Grey was willing to accept the considerable pain of the injections and the increased odor from them. Grey agreed, but first he wanted to square it with others.

He talked with his professors at the university, saying he was willing to drop out of school to save other students from the aroma. One professor said, “Grey, I want you to attend classes as usual. If worse comes to worst, there will be two people present in your classes — you and I.”

The students, every single one of them, stuck with Grey, rooted for him, and helped him however they could.

“In the three years that DMSO was denied him,” Mrs. Keinsley said, “Grey did not progress, but neither did he lose any of the ground he had gained.”

“I wish I could tell you that Grey arose from his wheelchair under his own power. This is coming. We are working toward that goal not only for Grey but for all people who are paralyzed by spinal injuries.”

A specialist in orthopedic surgery and fractures has drawn up a series of exquisitely detailed reports on the nerve-by-nerve and muscle-by-muscle comeback of the patient. They probably are without parallel in medical annals.

Note: a 1971 Colorado news article and 2007 obituary corroborate many of the above events and showed that Grey lived a successful life which greatly exceeded the typical prognosis of quadraplegics.

When you consider stories like Grey’s (and many others, including some readers shared with me of DMSO reversing their paralysis) it should be clear there is a very high EV with DMSO for disabling spinal injuries (SCI) as:

•The risk and cost of DMSO are negligible.
•DMSO routinely gets partial recoveries and if done shortly after the injury (which would require it being in ambulances), complete recoveries.
•In contrast, SCI injuries are often permanent, and at best (but still fairly rarely) will have a small recovery of motor or sensory function in the months immediately following the injury.
•Despite decades of research, there is still no treatment for SCIs.
•The negative impact of a SCI is so severe on one’s life that most patients would deem even a small improvement to justify the immense cost and risk to them.^1,2 Likewise, SCI patients often experience severe pain throughout their body (with a third reporting it severely affects their quality of life) which is quite difficult to treat, but as Stanley Jacob (and a few readers here) observed, their pain has an excellent response to DMSO.

Yet, despite that massive EV, and a lot of data supporting DMSO’s use for SCIs (which I complied in the article), virtually no one even knows this option exists. Furthermore, as I’ve shown in the DMSO series, this situation is not unique to SCIs (e.g., the first article in the series detailed how the same situation existed for strokes).

This hence raises an obvious question. How could this have happened?

Note: in that article I also focused on the far more common spinal disorders that cause widespread chronic pain and disability (e.g., low back pain and degenerative disc disease), and dramatic improvements to SCIs that allow afflicted individuals to get their lives back are also seen (which hundreds of readers here have reported).

DMSO’s Regulatory Journey

When DMSO was discovered, while initially skeptical a true wonder drug could exist, physicians were rapidly won over by the profound and rapid improvements they saw from it across a broad spectrum of illness, and before long, it became the most demanded drug in America. Unfortunately:

As Herschler now puts it, “If there is such a thing as a Murphy’s law of new drug development, DMSO proves it. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”

Briefly, after Dr Jacob discovering DMSO in 1961, the following occurred:

•The pharmaceutical industry was initially extremely interested in DMSO and many companies (including Merck) made huge investments in clinical trials for DMSO.

•The 1962 Thalidomide scare and the unanimous support for the FDA’s newfound regulatory powers.

•The FDA was initially receptive, but quickly realized they were being deluged with far more applications for DMSO uses than they had the staff to process (especially with their new far more robust standards). Notably, this actually came from the same person who was credited with stopping thalidomide.

•To get out of evaluating DMSO, the FDA seized upon two data points: a patient taking a large number of other drugs dying from an allergy while taking DMSO (which to this day remains one of the only deaths ever linked to DMSO) and data showing DMSO altered the focusing of eyes in dogs (but not monkeys or humans) to not only block all trials of DMSO but also through American embassies notify other countries that DMSO was the next thalidomide and would make you go blind.
Note: one of the most definitive human toxicity studies ever conducted (where prisoners had their entire body covered with multiple layers of DMSO each day for up to three months and then had every imaginable parameter tested) found DMSO, even extreme doses, had no toxicity. It was only after this study was conducted that the FDA finally pulled back some of its claims on DMSO’s toxicity.

•The pharmaceutical industry gradually pivoted from wanting to make money selling DMSO to wanting to keep it off the market because it competed with too many of their products.

•The new head of the FDA decided he wanted to expand the FDA’s policing powers as much as possible, so he decided to use DMSO as the test case for the FDA cracking down on unproven dangerous remedies so that he could empower the FDA.

Because of this, the FDA took a hardline position that DMSO was irredeemably bad, dismissing an immense body of scientific research supporting it (eventually pressuring scientists to stop the research) and ignoring widespread public protest by patients seeking access to it. Before long, the FDA identified a unique tactic to support this position—the fact that it was essentially impossible to do double blind trials with DMSO as:

•Patients experienced immediate and dramatic improvements that they knew came from an active therapeutic.

•DMSO has a characteristic odor that many trial participants experienced.

•DMSO was frequently irritating to the skin if applied.

•DMSO’s effects were systemic, so treating one part of the body would frequently improve untreated parts of the body.

So, each time the FDA leadership was confronted by news anchors, Congressmen, or Senators over DMSO, they insisted they were not stonewalling DMSO, and rather they were just waiting for “well-controlled trials” which could prove DMSO was actually effective, leading to frustrated Congressional testimonials like this:

If we have patients appear before the committee with sprained ankles, the application of DMSO would be followed by objective diminution of swelling within an hour. No other therapeutic modality will do this.

As such, the FDA only ultimately approved one use of DMSO (interstitial cystitis) in 1978, which I strongly suspect was done to head off Congressional criticisms that they were stonewalling DMSO. This is because, in 1980, at both a Senate and Congressional hearing on the FDA’s refusal to approve DMSO for anything, the agency insisted there was no agency prejudice against DMSO and that they would be happy to approve any reasonably conducted drug application sent to them—yet 46 years later, they still have not done so. Instead, DMSO was treated as a safe and inert additive which could be added to a variety of other pharmaceutical products that the FDA then approved (all of which are listed here), something the cynic in me believes occurred because this made it possible to bypass ever attributing a therapeutic benefit to DMSO and making it possible to patent and monetize each specific application which received a costly approval.

Conclusion

The estimated value framework is widely used in many fields (e.g., tests assessing one’s ability to quickly calculate EVs are used during the interview process by tech companies to identify competent candidates) and repeatedly cited in blogs I read written by younger physicians. However, I rarely, if ever, see it folded into broader discussions of medical decision making, something I cynically attribute to the fact that it would immediately displace many of the more harmful (but lucrative) medical practices on the market. Furthermore, I want to emphasize that while most of the ideas in this article are conclusions I arrived at from thinking about this mess, they are obvious enough that prominent figures within mainstream medical research have been raising them for decades — even the founder of evidence-based medicine has acknowledged that the framework was never meant to be reduced to "only RCTs count."

Note: somewhat analogously, I have long believed that if AI systems objectively evaluated all the EMR data we collect, many routine practices would be terminated as it would be clear their harm outweighed their benefit. However, the people I know who attempted to do this (it’s not very complicated), all ran into roadblocks due to the interests they threatened, and as such, systems like that have still not been implemented.

One of my key frustrations with the current paradigm is that we make a massive investment in costly (but low EV) research for drugs that ultimately often only show a minor benefit in one specific condition. Simultaneously, numerous therapies like DMSO which have much greater EVs (that patients suffering with “incurable” ailments can immediately see) not only languish in obscurity but often are attacked and suppressed to protect the status quo (while DMSO is probably the most blatant example of the FDA going to war against a therapy with broad public support, many other examples also exist such as all the off-patent COVID-19 treatments which were suppressed throughout the pandemic).

However, while this status quo has persisted for decades, it is now starting to shift, as the immense unchecked greed we all witnessed throughout COVID-19 (which polling shows the majority of the public has resentment towards) has not only shaken public trust in the pharmaceutical industry and its products (e.g., routine vaccinations), but also created a massive loss of trust in doctors, hospitals and the drug industry which eclipses anything in the medical system’s history (all of which I detailed here).

As that trust is vital to driving medical sales, there is at last, a real incentive to begin addressing some of the most egregious policies we’ve faced. Furthermore, if anything this trend is accelerating and politicians are noticing as more and more of them are beginning to publicly adopt MAHA’s language and positions.

This was best shown by the recent primary election in Louisiana where Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, the leading opponent of the MAHA agenda, not only lost his primary (which is extraordinarily rare—the last time this happened to an incumbent was in 2012 who was toppled by a Tea Party candidate), but Cassidy received less than a quarter (24.8%) of the vote—effectively ending his 20-year political career. Conversely, Senator Johnson, in his 2022 election (which from the start was a very close race), made the highly controversial decision to run for re-election on a vaccine-safety platform (making him the first Senator in history to do so), resulting in his opponents focusing on this to unseat him, yet (at a time when vaccine skepticism was much lower than it is now), he won the election because this stance energized his base far more than it alienated the rest of the electorate.

Likewise, much of the medical monopoly has only been possible because consumers had access to limited information and hence had to trust what medical authorities advised them to do. Now thanks to AI, it is quite easy for patients to have an in-depth understanding of the risks and benefits of a proposed treatment option, along with the other alternatives they can consider. While I do not believe AI can replace an experienced and creative physician, it can replace one who just follows protocols and guidelines, something which more and more has been the way doctors practice (as this ensures robust sales for the companies that effectively lobby to have their treatments put into the guidelines).

Given this shifting landscape, I’ve put a lot of thought into how this situation can be fully resolved. On one level, I believe it’s critical to expose the medical industry to real competition and provide people with the tools to actively calculate the EV of each option being proposed to them, as many of the harmful policies I routinely see are only able to perpetuate because of an information gap most customers face when they interface with the medical system. Likewise, most doctors in practice sincerely want to help their patients, and frequently get quite depressed by the fact they can only offer low EV options to their patients which provide minimal benefit (particularly if they have a corporate employer—which sadly regulations are making it harder and harder to escape from). For example, this is one of the thousands of DMSO correspondences I have received:

I appreciate all the articles you have been issuing on DMSO

It is really changing things for the better in my practice and your work has been the inspiration for it

Whether that is aches and pains, musculoskeletal disorders, arthritis, or cancer, I have been able to offer these patients something rather than sending them away

Offering viable alternatives is critical, as ultimately, the medical system only listens to money, and it is not until money is being lost that it will be willing to shift the standard of care to one which can compete with those options.

Separately, while I have strong disagreements with the policies the FDA has taken to enforce a state sanctioned monopoly over medical care (so that only those who pay to play can profit off the lucrative medical market), as the pre-FDA era shows us, regulatory action is needed, particularly since so much (finite) money is on the line once insurance begins to cover therapies. From the start, I have believed the greatest challenge the FDA faces is that it’s simply not possible to regulate most of the foods and drugs sold in the United States, and as such, they’ve had to selectively focus on a few manufacturers so that the worst things are prevented from harming the public and all other manufacturers, for fear of an enforcement action, are motivated to police themselves.

Unfortunately, since the FDA is vulnerable to lobbyists (who can either get the White House to fire agency staff or Congress to sanction the agency), this incentivizes the FDA to target their limited enforcement capabilities against smaller fish which lack the lobbying power to threaten the FDA and in many cases, go overboard in doing it so that a perception can be created for the public that the agency takes its duties to protect us very seriously (much in the same way we periodically see token regulatory actions taken against pharmaceutical manufacturers which do not threaten industry’s bottom line but almost never real action).

Given all of this, I believe the best regulatory policy going forward is as follows:

• For therapies insurance covers, robust and costly approvals should be a prerequisite for coverage, but in instances where no viable therapeutic option exists, the “best available” alternative option (e.g., that which has shown promise but has less robust evidence behind it) should get at least partial coverage.

• For “unproven” therapies which have been in use for decades, amassed a large body of supporting evidence, and failed to demonstrate harm (or at least shown less harm than their conventional alternatives), a parallel drug approval track needs to be created which fully permits the use of these therapies (and protects doctors from being penalized for using them) while avoiding the ensuing requirement for insurance reimbursement. This I believe is fully appropriate as that is effectively the exact same situation which already exists for virtually every drug being used in an off-label capacity, and as such, the only “fair” action regulators can do is to prevent sellers of the therapy from making claims which exceed the current approvals (or like supplements, only make mechanistic claims rather than stating it cures a disease).

• For most therapies, the purpose of the FDA should be to ensure safety and quality control (e.g., no bad batches of the therapy being produced), as this is a vital function to perform, and as we saw with the COVID-19 vaccines, the failure of the FDA to perform this task has immense consequences for everyone. Likewise, in studying the history of the FDA, a strong case can be made that the legislative action which provided the single greatest benefit to the public was the 1994 DSHEA act which restricted the FDA’s regulation of natural supplements to safety rather than efficacy, limiting the FDA to blocking claims.

This is ultimately why I’ve put so much work into compiling the evidence for DMSO across this series—because if the system is set up so that compelling data will never be enough unless it comes in the form of a billion dollar RCT, the least I can do is make the data so overwhelming that anyone willing to actually look at the numbers can see the EV for themselves, and the “hard” decision of whether to try it becomes a remarkably easy one.

The great irony is that when you actually run the numbers, it's not the "unproven" therapies that lack evidence — often it's the approved ones and their costly trials that lack value.

A recently updated index of all articles published in the Forgotten Side of Medicine (including the DMSO ones) can be viewed here. Additionally, to learn how other readers have benefitted from this publication and the community it has created, their feedback can be viewed here.

• DMSO is an “umbrella remedy” whose combination of therapeutic properties (improving circulation, reducing inflammation, protecting cells, and reviving dying ones) makes it well suited to treat “incurable” neurological disorders, with particularly dramatic results for spinal conditions.

• DMSO is one of the most potent known promoters of microtubule assembly (the structural scaffolding cells require to divide and extend new processes) and drives diverse stem cells to differentiate into neurons, providing a potential explanation for the spinal cord regeneration repeatedly documented throughout this article.

• Extensive animal data and remarkable human case reports show DMSO can prevent or reverse paralysis from strokes, traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries when given promptly, and provide significant rehabilitation even for older injuries. Veterinarians have used IV DMSO for decades to get paralyzed animals back on their feet, yet this knowledge has never been translated to human medicine.

• DMSO has been extensively used in clinical practice for degenerative spinal conditions (disc herniations, radiculopathies, stenosis, osteochondrosis), with hundreds of readers reporting it transforming chronic back pain, sciatica, neck pain, and post-surgical spinal pain, often after years of failed conventional treatments.

• This article will synopsize the extensive data demonstrating DMSO’s efficacy for spinal conditions (approximately 400 studies and 300 pertinent reader testimonials), discoveries we’ve made about neurological diseases over the years, and then concludes with practical guidance on DMSO protocols and complementary approaches that also aid in the treatment of the common neurological and vertebral disorders.

Recently, I summarized approximately 2000 studies and 200 reader reports showing DMSO treats “incurable” CNS neurological diseases (including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, multiple sclerosis, seizure disorders, psychiatric conditions, and Down syndrome) through its foundational properties: improving all forms of circulation, reducing inflammation, protecting cells from lethal stressors, crossing the blood-brain barrier, and reawakening dormant cells. This article extends that work to the spine, where DMSO’s regenerative properties are perhaps even more dramatic.

Remarkably, veterinarians have been using IV DMSO for spinal and neurological conditions in animals for decades. When a horse goes down and can’t get up from a severe neurological problem, IV DMSO is often standard practice. When a dog is hit by a car and paralyzed, many reports exist of IV DMSO routinely getting them walking again. Multiple veterinarians who contacted me described personally witnessing “miraculous recoveries” in paralyzed animals, and veterinary textbooks from the 1980s already listed IV DMSO protocols for brain and spinal cord injuries. Yet in human medicine, a spinal cord injury patient is told nothing can be done and to prepare for a life of severe disability.

This disconnect inspired Todd, the Air Force veteran with ALS featured in the previous article, to try IV DMSO in the first place. After reading about DMSO’s properties, he asked a veterinarian friend whether she ever used it intravenously on animals. She did: whenever an animal was down with a severe neurological problem and couldn’t get up. “Many times I can get the animal on its feet and start treating it,” she told him. Todd’s response captures the absurdity perfectly: “We’re using that for a severe neurological problem on an animal that can’t get up, but we’re not doing this for humans.”

As I will show, the answer to Todd’s question is not that DMSO doesn’t work in humans. It is that the FDA effectively prevented it from ever being properly tested, and the medical profession never looked at what veterinarians already knew.

Note: the night before I published this article, one DMSO doctor I correspond with shared with me “I just heard from my patient that he had a cow that was found down, completely unconscious with a heartbeat. He called his vet who told him to mix DMSO and saline and infuse it. Within 30 mins, the cow was back up like nothing happened and lived until they sold it off.”

Neural Regeneration

Nervous tissue is notoriously difficult to regenerate: damaged central neurons rarely regrow, and even peripheral nerves heal slowly and incompletely. This is partly because nerve regeneration demands that the cell's internal scaffolding (microtubules) reassemble, new axonal processes extend over long distances, and stem cells mature into functional neurons to replace those that were lost. DMSO promotes each of these processes: it is one of the most potent known promoters of microtubule assembly, it drives diverse stem cells to differentiate into neurons, and it can transiently "reset" cells trapped in dysfunctional structural states (a critical DMSO mechanism that will explored in detail later in the next DMSO article).

In purified tubulin systems, DMSO lowers the critical protein concentration required for their assembly into microtubules 8- to 10-fold (from 9.4 μM to 1.1 μM), primarily by reducing the rate at which tubulin subunits detach from growing ends while leaving the attachment rate unchanged. At optimal concentrations (6-12%, with 8% identified as best), 10% DMSO enabled microtubule formation at protein concentrations as low as 1 mg/ml (conditions under which assembly otherwise completely fails), producing microtubules that were morphologically and chemically identical to normal ones (GTP-dependent, cold-sensitive, inhibited by colchicine and calcium) but lacking the microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) that normally coat them, an important advantage in spinal cord injuries where MAPs are frequently damaged or lost.^1,2,3 These results have been confirmed across numerous systems: DMSO enabled assembly from tubulin completely stripped of associated proteins,¹ reversed the complete blockade of microtubule assembly caused by rotenone¹ (a Parkinson's-causing pesticide), facilitated polymerization without added nucleotide,¹ dose-dependently slowed disassembly,¹ promoted rapid self-organization into polarized assemblies in Xenopus egg cytosol,¹ progressively stabilized microtubules against cold-induced depolymerization at higher concentrations,^1,2,3 modified lattice structure to promote more stable and organized spiral assembly,^1,2 and greatly stimulated assembly in cobalt-containing systems.¹

Most notably, plant protoplasts (cells with their walls removed) that had completely lost their cortical microtubule networks and were unable to divide were treated with 2-7% DMSO. Within hours, DMSO reinstated a dense, three-dimensional cortical microtubule network visible by immunofluorescence as long microtubule bundles with increased tubulin content. This structural restoration triggered continuous cell divisions that had never occurred under any other conditions, and the effect was so robust that unlimited tissue could be generated from protoplasts that had never produced even a single colony in control experiments. DMSO outperformed all other microtubule-stabilizing compounds tested (and a separate study confirmed that even 1% DMSO dramatically promoted early cell divisions, with 10-45% division rates vs. approximately 5% in controls).

In cultured arterial smooth muscle cells, 1% DMSO stabilized cytoplasmic microtubules so effectively that the network resisted both colchicine-induced depolymerization (which DMSO has been repeatedly shown to counteract¹) and the growth-factor-triggered depolymerization that normally initiates cell division, effectively locking the cytoskeletal architecture in a stable, non-dividing configuration (a beneficial effect in vascular tissue, where uncontrolled proliferation drives disease). Prolonged exposure at the same concentration produced dramatic increases in microtubule quantity, with high DMSO doses driving polymerization faster than cells could complete normal assembly, while 1% DMSO also prevented neutrophil-induced endothelial stiffening and pathologic cytoskeletal remodeling.

In neurons specifically, DMSO supported axoplasmic microtubule assembly in squid giant axons, enhancing peak sodium conductance and shifting voltage-dependent activation toward more negative potentials, implying microtubule integrity directly modulates the ion channels that generate nerve impulses (DMSO also altered the structural organization and transport behavior of tubulin within axons, accelerating its movement and effectively accelerating a normal physiological differentiation process in cytoskeletal transport).

Finally, when leukemia cells were pretreated with microtubule-disrupting drugs (colchicine or vincristine), DMSO-induced differentiation (making the cancer become non-cancerous) was delayed, indicating that intact or stabilized microtubules are required for DMSO to drive cellular maturation.

Note: DMSO's microtubule-stabilizing effects extend across many biological systems, including improved development rates in fertilized eggs,¹ preservation of brain microtubules for electron microscopy,¹ promotion of microtubule aster formation in Xenopus egg extracts,^1,2 stimulation of stathmin/Op18 hyperphosphorylation (a key regulator of microtubule dynamics), and simultaneous induction of microtubule bundling and defense signaling in grapevine cells (demonstrating its cytoskeletal and membrane effects are functionally coupled). DMSO also reversibly altered the electrical surface charge of tubulin and microtubules in a dose-dependent manner, though at therapeutically realistic levels the charge remained negative with preserved polymer stability.^1,2,3,4,5

In short, DMSO dramatically lowers the threshold for microtubule assembly, stabilizes the resulting structures against depolymerization, and in living cells restores the structural scaffolding required for cell division and axonal extension. So, for damaged nervous tissue, where regeneration is often prevented by an inability to rebuild this cytoskeletal infrastructure, this represents a direct mechanistic explanation for the regenerative effects repeatedly seen from DMSO.

DMSO (typically at 1.5–2%) has also been shown across dozens of in vitro studies to induce neural differentiation — confirmed by neuronal marker expression and neurite outgrowth — in bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20, 21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29, 30} umbilical cord and cord blood mesenchymal stem cells,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7} adipose-derived stem cells,¹ pig embryonic stem cells,¹ nasal-derived stem cells,¹ dental pulp stem cells,¹ periodontal ligament stem cells (into Schwann-like cells),¹ amniotic fluid and amnion mesenchymal stem cells,^1,2 gingival fibroblasts (which then secreted dopamine and acetylcholine),¹ reaming debris-derived stem cells,¹ and numerous neuroblastoma cell lines.^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23}

Additionally, a 24-hour DMSO pretreatment rescued age-related neural differentiation deficits in induced pluripotent stem cells from older donors.^1,2

Mechanistically, DMSO promotes the maturation of already-committed neuronal precursors rather than stimulating proliferation. One study found it selectively doubled the number of hypothalamic neurophysin-positive neurons without inducing DNA synthesis, with a consistent 6-day lag indicating differentiation of post-mitotic precursors.¹ This process is driven by rapid suppression of cyclin-dependent kinase activity (particularly CDK6), accumulation of active retinoblastoma protein, and a dose-dependent shift toward G₀/G₁ phase with reduced S-phase cells^1,2,3,4 — all of which modulate the cell-cycle exit to permit terminal neural differentiation (while alternatively, DMSO will also switch cells to the S phase for tissue injury repair and promote proliferation¹). DMSO also selectively promotes synaptogenesis, increasing synaptic vesicle protein (synaptophysin) relative to general neuronal markers, suggesting it enhances synaptic connectivity beyond simply generating neurons.¹

Note: some evidence suggests DMSO’s primary action on stem cells is structural (cytoskeletal reorganization) rather than transcriptional, as one study found DMSO-induced morphological changes reflected cytoskeletal reorganization rather than classical gene-expression-driven differentiation,¹ and another found DMSO decreased neurotrophic factor expression,¹ which would explain why DMSO-treated stem cells differentiate appropriately when transplanted into animals or humans but show variable marker expression in isolated culture.

Beyond DMSO alone, DMSO combinations have further enhanced neural differentiation (e.g., FAD,^⬖ resveratrol,^⬖ BDNF, a cAMP derivative^1,2 and a ginsenoside^⬖) and promoted neural stem cell proliferation (e.g., Schisandrol A,^⬖ rapamycin a cAMP derivative^1,2 and intracerebroventricular CXCL1), which jointly were shown to directly facilitate motor recovery after a spinal cord injury.^1,2 Additionally, DMSO-differentiated neuronal cells have been used as a screening platform to identify compounds that promote neurite outgrowth in damaged central nervous system neurons.

Note: for reader ease, I use ^⬖ to designate natural substances DMSO is therapeutically combined with (in part to provide ideas for people who want to explore combinations at home).

Spinal Cord Injuries

Since central nervous tissue does not regenerate, spinal cord injuries are classically considered incurable. However, as the pioneers of DMSO, Stanley Jacob and Jack de la Torre MD both discovered, if DMSO is given intravenously shortly after a spinal cord injury, paralysis can frequently be prevented or reversed. De la Torre found that giving DMSO to dogs shortly after injuries that typically produced permanent paralysis spared them from it, with almost normal function returning within weeks, and concluded that if a severe spinal cord trauma is treated with intravenous DMSO within 2 hours, paralysis may be prevented. Jacob, meanwhile, reported that three patients who arrived paralyzed (at 5, 6, and 9 hours post-injury, far beyond what was thought recoverable) were treated with IV DMSO, and two of the three regained the ability to walk.

My son took dmso after his complete spinal cord injury c1/c2 was told would never breathe move his arms or legs. I got him dmso he is walking

Note: prior to DMSO, Rosa could not feel beneath her waist and had been told she would be a permanent paraplegic (the virtually certain outcome for her injury). After an earlier DMSO article I published described Rosa's miraculous recovery from starting DMSO five days post-injury (based on the above comment from Dr. Grindle), Mary Beth Pfeiffer tracked her down in Ecuador and corroborated that it indeed happened (all of which is detailed here). Rosa and her grateful husband understandably feel more people should know about DMSO and wish she'd received it sooner after the injury.

The greatest benefit occurs when DMSO is given within 90 minutes of injury, with higher doses also increasing the speed and likelihood of recovery.^1,2,3 However, DMSO can often provide significant rehabilitation for far older injuries (e.g., an engineer who had been paralyzed made remarkable improvements from DMSO 12 years later, and a college student with severe injuries including a C4-C5 fracture who began DMSO nearly two years post-injury gradually regained sensation, limb movement, and hand function over the following years—whose progress halted when the FDA unconscionably revoked DMSO's medical use—but nonetheless healed enough to graduate).

Likewise, one reader shared that his feet had been paralyzed for 13 years; after starting oral DMSO, he was walking without braces after three months and a veterinarian who practiced in the 1970s reported personally witnessing “many miraculous recoveries” in dogs and cats paralyzed after being hit by cars after they received IV DMSO.

Animal Evidence

DMSO’s protective effects against spinal cord injury have been extensively demonstrated in animals. In the most comprehensive studies, dogs subjected to spinal cord contusion injuries that produced permanent paraplegia in all untreated controls showed dramatic recovery with IV DMSO: in one study 6 of 9 treated dogs fully recovered over 6 weeks (with morphological analysis revealing continuity of surrounding white matter), while in de la Torre’s most detailed work, DMSO-treated dogs progressed from flaccid paraplegia to walking and running with deficit (grade 4-5) while controls remained paraplegic. Combined with dorsal midline myelotomy, approximately 57% of dogs walked, whereas groups lacking either DMSO or myelotomy showed no recovery.^1,2,3 DMSO-treated animals showed stronger somatosensory evoked responses at 3 hours (a strong predictor of recovery), and histopathology at 90 days showed preserved axon-myelin integrity (10% affected myelinated fibers vs. 52% in saline controls).

Dexamethasone, reserpine, and hypertonic dextrose provided no benefit.^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}

Many subsequent studies found similar results. In blunt spinal cord trauma, DMSO consistently improved motor function, reduced edema and oxidative stress, and preserved neural tissue: in rabbits DMSO accelerated recovery of hind leg motor function, normal urination and defecation, and repair with new skeletal tissue (while untreated rabbits showed no motor recovery), in cats DMSO improved functional recovery by 169.57%,^1,2,3 and in rats DMSO reduced free radical content and increased antioxidant activity while improving hindlimb motor function by 24-96 hours.^1,2,3 Topical epidural application of DMSO also produced significantly better motor performance compared to saline controls.¹ Additionally, in cats with gradual spinal cord compression, DMSO restored somatosensory evoked potentials and half regained some ability to walk, with a separate study confirming DMSO was effective for chronic spinal cord compression.^1,2,3 IV DMSO also significantly extended the time available before omental transposition surgery (from 3 hours to 6-8), outperforming every other existing therapy. In another rat contusion study, DMSO significantly improved motor function and somatosensory-evoked potentials compared to methylprednisolone or naloxone, producing the greatest clinical improvement over 14 days.¹

When the spinal cord was transected (cut), DMSO following the injury was found to be superior to both hyperbaric oxygen and placebo in allowing rats to avoid paralysis and in reducing subsequent spinal cord damage (less scarring, collagen formation, and damaged nerve fibers),^1,2 with a third study finding DMSO prevented pathological spinal changes hypothesized to result from DMSO removing fluid pockets that had eliminated the space nerves needed to regrow (and DMSO also significantly enhanced axolemmal resealing in cut guinea pig spinal cord nerves). In the most detailed transection studies, subcutaneous DMSO (tapering over 10 days) reduced secondary cavitation, preserved viable neurons, and produced a softened, well-vascularized scar containing numerous myelinated and unmyelinated axons. Treated animals showed coordinated hindlimb movements beginning around 70-80 days post-lesion, while untreated controls remained essentially permanently paraplegic. Electron microscopy confirmed ongoing Schwann cell-wrapped axonal regrowth at 90-100 days.^1,2

When the blood supply to the spinal cord was experimentally interrupted DMSO consistently prevented the resulting spinal paralysis (similar to how DMSO protects from strokes). In the most definitive study, DMSO perfused into an occluded aortic segment in dogs resulted in 11 of 12 animals achieving complete hindlimb recovery versus only 1 of 12 controls, with electron microscopy confirming preserved myelin, axonal integrity, and minimal inflammation. In another canine model, DMSO reduced postoperative motor dysfunction from 7/8 in controls to 2/8. DMSO also prolonged the ischemic tolerance of the spinal cord in rabbits^1,2,3,4 and rats, and in numerous separate rabbit ischemia-reperfusion studies, DMSO reduced lipid peroxidation, myeloperoxidase, and peroxynitrite markers while significantly improving neurological function and preventing microscopic tissue damage.^1,2,3 Additionally, a selective COX-2 inhibitor in DMSO dose-dependently prolonged the time to permanent paraplegia in rabbits with reversible spinal cord ischemia.

Note: many animal studies are exceedingly cruel and not something I support; however, as they have been done, I felt it was important to share the knowledge they provided so it would not be necessary to repeat them.

A revealing SCI Study

Biomedical experiments frequently need a solvent to dissolve the tested agent, and since most effective solvents besides DMSO are toxic, DMSO is widely used in both cellular and animal studies where it is assumed to be “inert” (as DMSO is needed for medical research and for many pharmaceutical products to work, but simultaneously cannot be allowed to compete with the medical market due to how many products it would displace). Having now reviewed much of the medical DMSO literature, I do not believe that assumption is correct: the effects attributed to DMSO plus the tested agent frequently resemble what DMSO alone does, and in studies that include a non-DMSO control, DMSO often demonstrates an independent therapeutic effect.
Note: I believe a key reason why many successful preclinical studies fail to provide results in patients is that DMSO is no longer being used as the vehicle (both because of its independent effects and because it potentiates other agents).

For example, in an RCT dog trial of naturally occurring acute spinal cord injuries (primarily from intervertebral disc herniations), an MMP inhibitor (dissolved in DMSO) within 48 hours of injury, improved their mean motor score from 2 to 5. However, when DMSO alone was compared to saline, the exact same benefit occurred, leading the authors to attribute the improved neurological outcomes to DMSO’s wide range of neuroprotective effects (which I detailed here). Likewise, in another study, DMSO provided greater spinal tissue protection than the tested agent (curcumin^⬖).

Note: numerous studies have found DMSO improved somatosensory-evoked potentials and that their presence correlates with an improved prognosis and eventual full recovery. Likewise, a 2025 bioinformatics analysis of subacute spinal cord injury identified DMSO as one of only three “promising candidates for modulating inflammation, reducing glial scarring, and promoting axonal repair” out of approximately 17,000 compounds screened, and in isolated rat spinal cord tissue, a medium containing DMSO produced the maximum reduction in lipid peroxidation products, greater than antioxidants alone or any other combination tested.¹ A detailed review attributed DMSO’s benefits to its antioxidant and free-radical scavenging properties counteracting the rapid membrane lipid peroxidation and eicosanoid-mediated vasoconstriction that drive secondary ischemic damage.

Safety Data

While many remarkable anecdotal reports exist, the only human study of DMSO for spinal cord injuries assessed safety rather than efficacy. In seven patients with stable spinal cord injuries, IV DMSO caused the expected osmotic hemolysis (which surprisingly improves blood circulation) but no adverse effects were detected in the kidneys. A mouse study confirmed that daily subcutaneous DMSO (up to ~4.58 g/kg for 3 days) had no adverse impact on bone parameters at any skeletal site, including the lumbar spine. Multiple reviews have also cited DMSO as a SCI treatment.^1,2,3,4

Note: one early SCI study found DMSO did not reduce gray matter necrosis at one hour post-trauma in dogs (though it increased cytochrome oxidase activity in non-traumatized tissue), two others also found no improvement,^1,2 one rabbit study using a low intraperitoneal dose showed only modest MDA reduction. These less favorable findings likely reflect differences in timing, dose, route, and injury severity, consistent with the well-established finding that the best responses are seen when DMSO is used shortly after the injury and higher doses are given.

Veterinary Clinical Use

A 1983 veterinary textbook for horses highlighted that IV DMSO was very helpful for brain and spinal cord injuries in horses (including comatose ones), and that in horses with cervical vertebrae lesions compressing the spinal cord, veterinarians had success giving IV DMSO every other day until improvement was noted. Multiple veterinary textbooks and review articles list DMSO among agents with the strongest evidence for neurological conditions in horses,^1,2,3,4,5,6 with one noting it reduces intracranial pressure faster than mannitol. A 2023 systematic review confirmed DMSO effectively treated spinal cord injuries in dogs and horses by providing anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antioxidant, and healing effects when administered topically or parenterally, while one veterinary review noted DMSO was considered a conventional treatment for posterior paralysis of traumatic, arthritic, or neuritic origin in dogs (although efficacy was variable).^1,2

The response of naturally injured animals to DMSO further supports its clinical utility. In the most dramatic case, an Italian veterinarian described a dog hit by a car that presented with Schiff-Sherrington syndrome (severe spinal cord damage with rigid forelimbs and complete posterior paresis [partial paralysis]). After standard therapy with steroids and glycerol failed over 7 days, he administered IV DMSO. “Ten hours later, the owners told me that the dog stood up and urinated by itself for the first time.” A 19-lb Dachshund with acute posterior paralysis, loss of deep pain sensation, and bladder paresis that had not responded to 14 days of high-dose dexamethasone received a single dose of IV DMSO; by the next morning she was walking, and within one week appeared almost normal. A young dog in Colombia with a T11 vertebral fracture and paraparesis received DMSO and meloxicam alongside physiotherapy, showing intent to use her hind limbs after one week and regaining full hindquarter mobility within weeks.1 A comatose toy poodle with a cervical vertebral fracture received IV DMSO alongside dexamethasone; by day 2 the pupillary light reflex returned, by day 3 consciousness was regained, by day 14 voluntary walking resumed, and at 8 months gait and behavior were nearly normal.

In horses with cervical vertebral fractures, IV DMSO (typically as a solution in Ringer’s lactate given for 7 days) is used as standard treatment, contributing to partial or full neurological recovery. One detailed case series documented an 8-year-old warmblood gelding who sustained three separate cervical fractures over several years and returned to light work between episodes despite progressive degenerative changes, and a 2.5-year-old Friesian stallion with acute C2 fracture similarly improved from neurological score 2.5-3/5 to 1.5/5 over 12 months. Additional equine cases document DMSO contributing to recovery from cervical vertebral arthrosis,¹ lathyrism-induced neurological dysfunction, and cervical osteomyelitis.

In downer camelids (llamas and alpacas that can’t stand), IV DMSO was recommended to reduce secondary neurological damage. DMSO is similarly recommended alongside furosemide and mannitol for recumbent foals with spinal cord trauma, and has been administered alongside NSAIDs and corticosteroids for cervical extradural spinal hematoma in horses. In a 2-day-old foal with perinatal asphyxia presenting with seizures, cerebral edema, and acute renal failure, IV DMSO contributed to marked resolution of cerebral edema and complete neurological recovery by day 12. Finally, veterinarian Jack Metcalf found horses developmentally disabled at birth (to the point they can’t nurse), once given IV DMSO three times daily, regained the ability to nurse and had accelerated overall development.

Additionally, multiple readers reported veterinary DMSO applications for spinal and nerve conditions: a horse with hock arthritis, torn suspensory ligaments, lumbar soreness, and frostbite-damaged ears showed improvement across all conditions within 10 days of topical DMSO (including normalized stride, improved backing, deeper breathing from 28 to 12-13 breaths/minute, and return of warmth to chronically cold ears),¹ a dog with hip dysplasia and a damaged T2 disc became approximately 20% more comfortable after its meloxicam was compounded with DMSO,¹ a veterinarian reported treating a dog’s spine with DMSO and finding the dog “totally recovered” after three years with no repeat treatment needed,¹ and multiple readers noted their veterinarians had used DMSO for decades for equine and canine orthopedic and neurological conditions.^1,2

Additional Reader Reports

A reader’s goat became paraplegic in the hindquarters; subcutaneous injections of DMSO with liquid thiamine^⬖ near the affected spine produced attempts to stand within 30 minutes of the first dose, with daily improvement over several weeks.¹ A (different) small goat whose neck was crushed in a car door (producing a visibly crooked spine and repeated respiratory arrests requiring chest compressions) received IV DMSO at a veterinary hospital; within 10 minutes she was awake and breathing strongly, and eventually made a full recovery.¹

A dog paralyzed by Ehrlichia (a tick-borne disease) was recommended for euthanasia, but daily undiluted DMSO spray applied to the spine at the point where sensation was lost produced gradual return of sensitivity over six months, and the dog can now walk with difficulty.¹ Another reported: “I’m a paraplegic with severe neuropathy. DMSO replaced my nerve medication. It works.”¹ Several readers reported dramatic responses from topical DMSO for acute spinal injuries: one was “in pain like a cripple” after a tennis fall and had “almost total relief” within 60 seconds,¹ another could not walk after a four-car pileup but had “0 pain” overnight from DMSO applied to the upper, mid, and lower spine,¹ and a third with a severe back injury from a fall was walking with assistance within five days of starting topical DMSO three times daily.¹

Note: DMSO has also been shown to treat many other complications of spinal cord injuries (e.g., Dr. Jacob found DMSO stabilized retrograde ejaculation in paraplegics, along with reducing bladder infections, bedsores, and improving body temperature control). A Russian patent for activating lost motor functions after spinal cord injury incorporated a DMSO elixir (with aloe,^⬖ jasmine,^⬖ and propolis^⬖ extracts) applied topically to motor points as part of a neurophysiologically controlled rehabilitation protocol. Another reader with a 9-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy (and a shunt for hydrocephalus) shared that topical DMSO helped the cerebral palsy symptoms, and one reader’s story (detailed here) shows how IV DMSO can stabilize even progressive spinal cord conditions over decades that would otherwise be terminal.

Combination Studies in SCI Models

Many different agents dissolved in DMSO have also improved spinal cord injuries. Since DMSO served as the vehicle control in these studies, the agents’ benefits are measured against DMSO’s own baseline neuroprotection, meaning the actual benefit over no treatment is likely larger than these studies report (so the agents, without DMSO, likely do much less). Likewise, the common benefits seen across these studies suggest they are a property of DMSO rather than the assorted agents it is being combined with.

Among the most extensively studied, curcumin^⬖ improved motor function (BBB scores), inhibited glial scar formation via NF-κB suppression, and when combined with neural stem cell transplantation, enhanced neuronal migration and reduced inflammation.^1,2,3,4,5 Resveratrol^⬖ downregulated inflammatory GFAP/STAT3, reduced glial scarring, and improved motor recovery via the SIRT1-AMPK autophagy pathway.^1,2 Necrostatin-1 repeatedly improved motor function and neuronal survival by inhibiting necroptosis and preserving mitochondrial ultrastructure.^1,2,3,4,5,6 Aspirin activated the Nrf2/NQO1/HO-1 antioxidant pathway while suppressing inflammatory TNF-α, IL-6, and astrocyte activation. Rutin^⬖ reduced spinal cord edema and pro-inflammatory cytokines via PI3K/AKT. Estrogen reduced inflammation, edema, myelin loss, and axonal damage while improving motor scores, even when treatment was started in chronic SCI,^1,2,3 and separately acting through GPR30 protected spinal motor neurons via PI3K/Akt. Progesterone similarly improved locomotor function and preserved white matter.

Among agents targeting cell death pathways, shikonin inhibited TNFR/RIPK1-mediated necroptosis,^1,2,3 deferoxamine and edaravone inhibited ferroptosis, liproxstatin-1 upregulated GPX4, TUDCA^⬖ reduced neuronal apoptosis and caspase-12 expression,^1,2 a cysteine protease inhibitor prevented neurofilament degradation, and a calpain inhibitor reduced apoptosis, hemorrhage, edema, and vascular thrombi.^1,2,3

Rapamycin enhanced autophagy, promoted Schwann cell-mediated remyelination, and improved motor function across multiple studies,^1,2 with additional work showing it activated the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and enhanced BDNF.¹ MiR-125b promoted neural stem cell proliferation and improved neurological recovery via Smurf1/KLF2/ATF2. Rolipram improved motor scores and elevated SOD in spinal cord ischemia-reperfusion, and separately increased Bcl-2 while decreasing caspase-3 in spinal cord transection.^1,2 Aminoguanidine (an iNOS inhibitor) repeatedly improved hind limb motor function and reduced neuronal apoptosis in spinal cord ischemia-reperfusion.^1,2

A mitochondrial fission inhibitor protected mitochondrial membrane potential and reduced neuronal apoptosis across multiple studies,^1,2,3 while 2,4-dinitrophenol (a mitochondrial uncoupler) preserved white matter. CAPE^⬖ reduced apoptosis more effectively than methylprednisolone while preserving near-normal histological architecture. Ginsenoside Rg1^⬖ also improved depressive behavior following SCI by reducing hippocampal neuroinflammation via p38 MAPK inhibition. Triptolide^⬖ improved motor function and upregulated autophagy comparably to methylprednisolone.^1,2,3

Natural compounds showing neuroprotective effects include bergenin^⬖ (promoted M1-to-M2 macrophage polarization via PPARγ), baicalin^⬖ (M2 polarization via JAK1/STAT6), Salvia miltiorrhiza^⬖ (reversed oxidative stress in rabbits), melatonin^⬖ (suppressed MMP-9 and preserved myelinated white matter), fisetin^⬖ (promoted neuronal axon regeneration), and astaxanthin^⬖ (enhanced autophagy). Butylphthalide protected mitochondria and inhibited necroptosis,¹ while ferrostatin-1 and matrine^⬖ each similarly reduced neurological severity.¹ An epoxide hydrolase inhibitor reduced disease severity by suppressing multiple inflammatory pathways and in a separate study promoted remyelination.^1,2 Pirfenidone improved locomotor scores by reducing fibrosis, and an aquaporin 4 inhibitor (TGN-020) reduced spinal cord edema and glial scarring.^1,2 Jasplakinolide reduced astrocyte swelling through F-actin polymerization. Conversely, TrkB blockade (with K252a) suppressed exercise-induced allodynia without impairing motor recovery, indicating BDNF-TrkB signaling mediates post-SCI pain but not the motor benefits of early rehabilitation.

Additional agents showing neuroprotective effects in SCI models include ebselen (reduced oxidative stress),¹ pycnogenol^⬖ (mitochondrial membrane potential), EGCG^⬖ (reduced gliosis), midostaurin (inflammasome modulation), DHEA (reduced IL-1β and caspase-3), EGFR inhibitors^1,2 and U0126^1,2,3 (both reduced glial scarring and promoted nerve fiber regeneration), a PI3K inhibitor (reduced glial scarring), a PP2A activator (promoted astrocyte migration and MMP-2/9 via p38), tamoxifen (reduced NF-κB and caspase-3), butein^⬖1,2 (inhibited NF-κB), a Lipoxin A4 agonist, difumarate salt S-15176 (prevented apoptosis), GSK-3β inhibitors^1,2,3,4 (reduced neuronal apoptosis and inflammation), a cAMP derivative^1,2 (activated Epac2/Akt), aminoguanidine^1,2 (reduced iNOS in spinal ischemia-reperfusion), lutein^⬖ (preserved motor neurons), zonisamide-prednisone nanomicelles (promoted axon elongation), a PTEN antagonist (promoted long-distance respiratory axon regeneration), a TGFβR-Smad3 inhibitor (reduced syrinx size in syringomyelia), intracellular sigma peptide (improved locomotor recovery), acetylcorynoline^⬖ (reduced microglia via EGFR/MAPK), dexmedetomidine (reduced ER stress), P2Y12¹ and P2Y2¹ inhibitors (restored mitochondrial integrity and promoted neuronal differentiation, respectively), SPG302 (enhanced synaptogenesis after cervical hemisection), monastrol with chondroitinase ABC (enhanced axon regeneration through nerve grafts), VEGF (promoted spinal cord neural stem cell proliferation), human umbilical cord MSC exosomes (promoted repair via miR-29b-3p/PTEN), tetramethylpyrazine^⬖ (improved motor function and NGF expression), JNK inhibitors^1,2 (suppressed autophagic cell death), ceftriaxone (prevented motor neuron death), curcumin^⬖ (alleviated lidocaine-induced spinal neurotoxicity), dexmedetomidine (protected against bupivacaine spinal neurotoxicity via p38 MAPK), normobaric oxygen with a MEK1/2 inhibitor (protected against decompression sickness), tacrolimus (reduced demyelination and axonal loss by up to 95% in EAE), and ERK inhibitors (enhanced ischemic postconditioning protection).

Note: PEG (polyethylene glycol) has been used as a fusogen to attempt rapid reconnection of severed axons, and DMSO was specifically noted as an additive known to enhance PEG-induced membrane fusion, with two cases achieving functional action potential conduction through reconnected crayfish axons within 30-60 seconds.

Lastly numerous agents combined with DMSO have also shown therapeutic benefit in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis models involving spinal cord inflammation and demyelination, including nordihydroguaiaretic acid,^⬖ ginkgolide A,^⬖ a mitochondrial division inhibitor, curcumin,^⬖ a GSNOR inhibitor, and tanshinone IIa^⬖.

Radiation Myelopathy

DMSO applied topically to the zone of radiation-induced spinal cord damage, followed 1-2 hours later by acupuncture, shortened overall treatment duration from 60 days to 30-40 days and produced positive neurological outcomes including decreased focal symptoms, reduced paresis, and improved sensory disturbances, with effects persisting for at least 6 months.^1,2,3

Arachnoiditis

Arachnoiditis is inflammation of the membrane surrounding the spinal cord and brain, which causes disabling chronic pain, neurological issues, and adhesions that have limited conventional treatment options (e.g., separation surgery is extremely difficult and the ensuing inflammation often makes it worse). As DMSO’s unique therapeutic properties, in theory can address this condition, it offers great promise (particularly since I only know of one way it can be treated—which is nearly impossible to get access to). The limited data here is as follows:

•In 42 patients with chronic cerebral arachnoiditis, transcerebral “superiontophoresis” with DMSO and hydrocortisone (10 mg) over ten sessions produced a statistically significant increase in the proportion of patients discharged with improvement or considerable improvement compared to conventional treatment controls, with no side effects reported.
Note: ultrasound (phonophoresis) or electrical current (iontophoresis) are two methods used to deliver therapeutic agents through the skin (and in the case of phonophoresis, then direct them to a target site). As DMSO has synergy with these modalities, they are frequently combined in Eastern Europe and Russia (where the less correct term “electrophoresis” is often used).

•For cerebral arachnoiditis, endonasal iontophoresis using vitamin E^⬖ dissolved in DMSO (applied via nasal turundas for 20–30 minutes, 10–13 sessions) was conducted alongside pyrogenal-induced fever therapy. In one detailed case of post-influenza convexital cerebral arachnoiditis with optic disc stasis, this protocol produced clinical improvement, complete resolution of optic disc stasis, and no recurrence at nearly 3 years of follow-up — reportedly shortening treatment duration and reducing relapses.

Lastly, DMSO has also been used as an enhancer for Karipain (papaya enzyme) iontophoresis in arachnoiditis treatment.

Note: my knowledge here is quite limited (the only reader who tried this never followed up on their progress). I also suspect DMSO injections closer to the spine (which Jacob used for severe spinal injuries) may help, but I have not yet been able to reach the person who would know if this was tried.

Spasticity

Spasticity (involuntary muscle tightness and spasms) is a common and debilitating consequence of spinal cord injury, arachnoiditis, poliomyelitis, and other neurological conditions.

In patients with muscle spasticity from a wide range of causes, DMSO mixed with sodium oxybutyrate (GHB) for iontophoresis, plus topical applications with sodium oxybutyrate and lidocaine) was applied to spastic areas after IV sodium oxybutyrate and therapeutic exercises. Daily procedures over 25 days prolonged muscle relaxation beyond the 2–3 hours achievable with IV sodium oxybutyrate alone, reduced pain, spasticity, and reflex excitability (decreased H-reflex amplitude, elevated current thresholds by 2–2.5 mA), increased voluntary movement volume and strength, and improved gait, with one patient progressing from cane-dependent to independent walking. In post-stroke rehabilitation, endonasal iontophoresis of vitamin E^⬖ dissolved in DMSO (alongside electrostimulation of paretic muscles) similarly decreased muscle tone, attributed to gradual restoration of cortical-subcortical relationships and modulation of reticulospinal pathways.

In a patient with right-sided scalenus syndrome (painful muscle spasm with neurovascular compression), DMSO mixed with tolperisone (Mydocalm) was applied as compresses for 1.5–2 hours daily for 10 days; combined with intramuscular Mydocalm and vascular therapy, this led to near-complete regression of the pain and muscle-tonic syndrome, restored radial pulse, and warmed hand within 3 weeks.

In decerebrate cats with chronic spinal hemisection, the 5-HT₁B/₁D agonist zolmitriptan (in DMSO) enhanced intermuscular inhibition and stabilized force responses, supporting serotonergic modulation of spinal force feedback circuits for managing post-SCI spasticity. Additionally, a Russian patent proposed DMSO as a transdermal enhancer for a botox patch targeting spasticity (in Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, dystonia, and multiple sclerosis), potentially bypassing the existing need for repeated injections.

A reader with vaccine-induced Stiff Person Syndrome reported that topical DMSO was the only treatment that relieved constant muscle spasms (spanning back, calves, feet, and chest) over 22 months of uncontrolled pain: “I have it with me at all times.”¹ Another reported topical DMSO allowed them to discontinue a muscle spasm pill they’d taken for years.¹ Multiple readers also reported topical DMSO resolving restless leg syndrome, in some cases allowing discontinuation of long-term medications^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7} (e.g., one had cycled through five prescription medications over 30 years until DMSO, while another found a DMSO roll-on applied during a breakthrough episode replaced a 20-minute middle-of-the-night yoga routine, and another noted DMSO on the legs combined with oral magnesium^⬖ addressed both neuropathy and restless legs that had prevented sleep).

Note: in a mare with tetanus, intravenous DMSO (as part of intensive supportive therapy) contributed to gradual resolution of rigidity, dysphagia, and systemic signs over 22 days, with discharge without sequelae (other reports also detail DMSO in tetanus treatment protocols for mares).

Spinal Musculoskeletal Conditions

Beyond acute spinal cord trauma, DMSO has been extensively used in clinical practice (particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe) for degenerative spinal conditions: both as a direct treatment and as a penetration enhancer for enzyme therapy targeting disc herniations, along with being used to treat intervertebral disc syndrome in dogs and spondylogenic neuropathies in humans. Spinal musculoskeletal conditions are also one of the most popular applications for DMSO among readers, in part because of how common they are and how effectively DMSO treats them.

One reason DMSO works so well here is that topical DMSO is most effective at treating small joints close to the surface (e.g., in the fingers), and the vertebral facet joints on either side of the spine fit this profile. Since chronic facet joint inflammation is thought to underlie a significant amount of spinal pain (hence why harmful steroids are routinely injected into them), DMSO’s anti-inflammatory properties are clearly relevant.

However, I do not believe anti-inflammatory action is the primary reason DMSO excels for back pain. Back pain is notoriously heterogeneous (varied): the same symptom can arise from dozens of different causes, a diagnosed finding on imaging (e.g., arthritis) is often not the actual source, and because the true cause frequently cannot be determined—catch-all painkillers are used instead (which partially mask symptoms but never resolve them and require increasingly toxic escalating doses). This heterogeneity also explains why so many treatments show partial evidence: if 40% of cases share a particular cause, a treatment targeting that cause will appear “effective” in 40% of patients while failing or worsening the rest (e.g., spinal surgery is a particularly costly example of this pattern).

DMSO excels precisely because it has multiple therapeutic mechanisms that each address different subsets of back pain: healing tissue injuries, reducing inflammation, restoring blood flow and fluid drainage (which when impaired can cause pain), normalizing bulging discs, resetting dysfunctional neurological circuits (discussed in the next article), and directly blocking pain transmission.

Beyond this, in my own experience, the most common cause of back and neck pain is tight muscles, which makes it quite tragic to continually see patients undergo elaborate, costly, and harmful treatments for something with a fairly simple cause.

Given this last point, one reason DMSO is particularly effective for spinal pain may be its muscle-relaxing properties: DMSO tends to relax skeletal muscle,¹ and topical application produces electromyographic (EMG) evidence of muscle relaxation within 60 minutes.^1,2 In laboratory studies, 50% DMSO prevented contraction of frog skeletal muscles,¹ while lower concentrations (3–6%) enhanced contraction of cardiac and smooth muscle,¹ suggesting DMSO selectively relaxes the voluntary musculature responsible for spasms while preserving or enhancing involuntary muscle function.

Note: one cause of back pain DMSO typically cannot address is structural misalignment. However, while DMSO often cannot correct the misalignment itself, it can counteract the chronic irritation it causes and thereby reduce pain. Additionally, many cases misalignments result from tight muscles (which DMSO addresses), knotted fascia or scar tissue (which DMSO ameliorates) or weak ligaments (which to a much lesser degree DMSO addresses), so in some cases it can fix the misallignment.

DMSO also works synergistically with many other therapies that treat specific subsets of pain, and as this article shows, many modalities have been combined with it. One of these is trigger point therapy, an 80-year-old (insurance-covered) approach (which can be very useful) that identifies hyperirritable myofascial (muscle and fascia) points generating chronic pain and deactivates them to resolve the dysfunctional reflex and promote significant musculoskeletal improvement (notably, many trigger point locations overlap with classical acupuncture points).

In turn, in Russian and Eastern European clinical practice, DMSO is widely used in trigger point and myofascial pain management, typically applied topically and mixed with novocaine, diclofenac, hydrocortisone, or lidocaine in compresses over trigger points and spastic muscles.^1,2,3,4,5,6 This approach has been applied across multiple body regions (lumbar, cervical, thoracic, facial, and shoulder musculature)^1,2 and contexts, including as preparation for acupressure massage (where a DMSO-novocaine mixture applied for one hour facilitated muscle relaxation and improved subsequent manual therapy outcomes),¹ as a pre-traction application (DMSO with novocaine over paravertebral trigger points to prevent spasm exacerbations during spinal traction),¹ as a topical adjunct after epidural injection courses,¹ and via phonophoresis to deliver hydrocortisone into latent trigger points. DMSO has also been successfully injected directly into trigger points (alongside substances such as lidocaine, procaine, B vitamins, and corticosteroids), a method documented in both human¹ and veterinary¹ practice, though digital ischemic pressure is generally preferred over DMSO injection for animal patients.

Note: DMSO also treats musculoskeletal injuries and joint pain throughout the body (e.g., many readers and studies report it helps shoulder and SI joint issues). However, these are not covered here as this article’s focus is strictly on the spine.

Back Pain (Dorsalgia)

The most rigorous evidence comes from a Russian placebo-controlled clinical trial of 68 patients (aged 18–77) with acute, subacute, or chronic vertebrogenic dorsalgia. Topical DMSO gel applied twice daily for 10 days significantly outperformed placebo: mean pain intensity on VAS dropped from 7.46 to 2.58 (versus 7.13 to 4.73 for placebo), the muscle syndrome index shifted to mild severity in 76.3% of patients (versus 33.3% for placebo), spinal mobility restriction was fully resolved in 39% (versus 27% for placebo, with 20% remaining severe in the placebo group but 0% in the DMSO group), and Roland-Morris disability scores improved by 60% (versus 35% for placebo).^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}

Earlier controlled studies corroborate these findings: a 1968 trial found that in 38 patients with lumbar and cervical disc herniation, treatment duration in the DMSO group was reduced by approximately half compared to controls,^1,2 and another study similarly found DMSO treated the root cause of vertebrogenic lumbar pain.

In a staged rehabilitation program for 320 patients with vertebrogenic pain syndrome, DMSO applied topically on the painful segment (alternating daily with pharmacopuncture for up to 5 days during the acute inpatient phase) reduced pain to 0–2 points on VAS in 89% (versus 73% in controls), with long-term remission maintained in 80% when repeated annually.

A Russian patent for treating lumbar disc herniations described a multi-step protocol concluding with applications of a DMSO-drug mixture (e.g., with procaine, ATP, nicotinic acid) on the gluteal and lumbar regions, with two case reports demonstrating substantial pain reduction and functional improvement over 2–5 weeks;^1,2,3,4 a 2019 conference on lumbosacral osteochondrosis listed DMSO applications (often via iontophoresis) as an initial therapy used in conjunction with many of these same interventions. In a veterinary case, a 3-year-old Thoroughbred Arabian stallion with acute lumbago, paralysis of the right foreleg, and extremely elevated muscle values regained limited leg movement after a DMSO infusion. A published account similarly described a man with spinal arthritis who was bedridden more than half the time transforming into “an active, pain-free man in exactly 30 minutes” after a single DMSO application.

Note: I have received so many remarkable spinal DMSO testimonials from grateful readers that it is impossible for me to quote most of the ones I want to here and as such, my goal is to provide an idea of the flavor of them and links to the specific issues DMSO cured so that individuals with them can see what others experienced and reach out to them. My best guess from the well over a thousand pain reports I’ve received is that between 80-90% of people who use DMSO for pain have a noticeable improvement from doing so (which matches what early DMSO researchers observed).

Acute Back Injuries

Readers have consistently reported rapid pain relief from acute back injuries, often within minutes. A welder with 10 years of work-related back pain was pain-free 20 minutes after a single DMSO application,¹ and similar rapid responses were reported after car accidents,^1,2,3 falls,^1,2,3 and sports injuries,^1,2 and lifting injuries,¹ with pain relief typically occurring within minutes to hours and often persisting without need for reapplication.^1,2,3 One reader was “in agony” and “a hobbling cripple” after a tennis fall until DMSO restored 90% of pain relief and movement within one minute.¹ A Navy EOD trainee in 1980 who severely bruised his tailbone in a ski accident was able to fully resume training after two days of DMSO use.¹ Multiple readers also reported rapid relief from tailbone injuries (fractured or bruised coccyx), typically reducing pain from “searing” to manageable within days to weeks.^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9},¹⁰

Chronic Back Pain

A large number of readers with chronic back pain (ranging from years to decades) reported significant or complete relief from topical DMSO. ^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73}

A few consistent patterns stood out: pain relief was typically 60–100%, onset ranged from minutes to weeks (with longer-standing conditions taking longer), and many were able to reduce or eliminate NSAIDs,^1,2,3,4 opioids,^1,2,3,4 or other pain medications. One reader with severe chronic back pain described DMSO as the only substance in their life that “beat the too good to be true rule”¹ and a physician with 26 years of practice and chronic lower back pain called it “a game changer,”¹

One particularly detailed account described a reader with 30 years of “severe disc degeneration L1-S1” who applied DMSO once to the lower back: “It worked immediately and I haven’t had to use it for my back again. That was about 60+ days ago.”¹ Another reader with severe chronic spinal pain soaked their entire back in a DMSO-mineral solution for six hours (far exceeding recommended contact time). “Unbelievably, 7 pitch black lumps rose to the surface and formed eschar scabs which finally came off about 4 weeks later.” After these masses were expelled, “my back felt fantastic and I felt 20 years younger,” though subsequently “it felt like something was moving up and down my spine in the fluid.”¹

Post-Surgical Back Pain

Pain which persists after spinal surgeries, particularly after spinal fusions, is sadly quite common, termed “failed back syndrome” (or sometimes ‘failed neck syndrome’), and notoriously difficult to treat. However, readers who had this after spinal surgery including fusions, laminectomies, and multiple revision surgeries frequently reported significant relief from DMSO.^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15}

One reader with over 50 surgeries and a thoracic spinal cord injury (who was also allergic to opioids) called DMSO “life changing,”¹ while another after 23 spinal operations reported a 50% reduction in medications within weeks.¹ A reader whose wife had nerve shocks in her toes following a poorly executed spinal fusion found that nightly DMSO application to the spine adjacent to the fusion incision “immediately had less severe and less frequent toe shocks” and she no longer needed to charge her back nerve stimulator.¹ Another with hardware in the back from fusion surgery gets “a DMSO back rub every day, and it helps,”¹ while a reader with Morvan’s disease following viral encephalitis (who had undergone cervical fusion among multiple surgeries) reported 75% pain reduction and visible inflammation decrease after two weeks of topical DMSO.¹

Others with fusions at various levels have also reported reduced pain and improved function.^1,2,3,4

Scar Tissue and Adhesions

Multiple readers reported DMSO softening and reducing surgical scars on the spine, with one noting that a scar on the back of the neck (operated on three times over 30 years) “softened and untwisted” and the spine came back into alignment.¹ Others reported scar tissue pain from back surgeries diminishing with regular use.^1,2,3

Note: DMSO has been shown to temporarily relocate talin (which anchors structural fibers to adhesion sites) away from those sites, after which the structures reform normally upon DMSO's removal,¹ providing a potential mechanism for these observations.

Radiculitis and Cervical Osteochondrosis Protocols

In four studies conducted by the same Russian research group (from 2005–2018, with 64 to 147 patients per study), DMSO solution with procaine was applied as compresses to painful myotonic points on the neck or shoulder for 1.5–2 hours per session over 10–15 procedures, as one component of multimodal conservative treatment for cervical radiculopathy and myelopathy, effectively making it a trigger point treatment. Throughout the studies, the DMSO-containing conservative treatment protocol succeeded in 68.8–84.4% of patients, with improvements in pain, sensation, strength, cervical mobility, and electromyographic parameters.^1,2,3,4,5,6

Note: radiculopathy is a disorder of the spinal nerve root (radiculitis specifically refers to inflammation of the nerve root and frequently causes shooting, radiating pain). Myelopathy is a disorder of the spinal cord itself.

For cervical osteochondrosis with pronounced neuralgic syndromes, topical applications of a DMSO mixture (with procaine, ascorbic acid, calcium gluconate, and ATP) applied for 40–45 minutes every other day over 20–22 days produced rapid analgesia (pain relief) from the first application and elimination of spontaneous pain by 3–4 procedures in patients with reflex syndromes. Over 2 years, exacerbation frequency dropped and disability days fell approximately 4.7-fold (from 481 to 104 total).

These results were independently corroborated across several additional cervical studies: in 40 patients, DMSO iontophoresis on the cervical spine area (combined with NSAIDs, muscle relaxants, and paravertebral blocks) produced acute pain relief within 3–4 days in 32 patients; DMSO-procaine or DMSO-hydrocortisone combinations were separately recommended for shoulder-hand syndrome and humeroscapular periarthrosis in the acute stage of cervical osteochondrosis syndromes; and DMSO applications with dissolved indomethacin or naproxen were successfully used as an alternative to physiotherapy for radicular pain, headaches, and dizziness. In 40 patients with cervical osteochondrosis complicated by shoulder myofascial pain syndrome, DMSO topical applications during the acute phase alongside physiotherapy and dynamic electroneurostimulation resulted in full pain resolution in 34 cases (85%), with significant improvements in shoulder mobility, well-being, and sleep.

In cervical osteochondrosis with DMSO-mud applications (where DMSO solution on a napkin was followed by a layer of therapeutic mud), clinical improvement occurred in 100% of the DMSO-mud group after only 5–6 procedures versus 50% in the mud-only group after 10 procedures, with marked gains in hand dynamometry (e.g., 20 kg → 53 kg), neck range of motion, and resolution of muscle tenderness.

For lumbosacral conditions, in 63 machine operators with professional lumbosacral radiculopathy, standard inpatient treatment including DMSO-shilajit^⬖ iontophoresis (alongside NSAIDs, muscle relaxants, massage, and vitamin B) over 12–14 days reduced pain scores by 50%, resolved pain irradiation into the leg in 45%, and improved paresis in 27% of patients (with osteopathy further improving all outcomes). Phonophoresis of Chondrasil ointment (containing chondroitin sulfate^⬖ and DMSO) used alongside the NSAID Revmoxicam in a clinical trial for vertebral radiculopathies enabled significant regression of neurological symptoms. For standard Russian and Ukrainian radiculitis and sciatica treatment, repeated DMSO compresses were recommended, with DMSO mixed with procaine applied as compresses on the lumbosacral area for 2–4 hours as a standard protocol for reducing edema and inflammation around affected nerve roots^1,2,3 (touching upon the fact DMSO is a highly effective local diuretic).

Note: back when vaccine injuries were acknowledged within the medical literature, one of the leading theories to explain them was that the inflammation and edema they caused (either around the nerve or within it between individual fibers) compressed nerves, particularly those traversing tight spaces (e.g., at the radial groove or spinal nerve trunks). While I believe vaccine-induced microstrokes are the primary issue, I immediately thought of this model when I saw that DMSO indication mentioned in a recent Ukrainian pharmacotherapy manual,¹ particularly since other schools of healing also believe this process creates neurologic dysfunction.

DMSO was also, again, used as a base for microapplications on acupuncture zones and myofascial reflex zones in chronic pain syndromes, following a 1982 protocol aimed at eliminating pain, edema, and inflammation.^1,2 For the syndrome of the inferior oblique muscle of the head (causing cervico-occipital pain), DMSO applications combined with procaine blockade and muscle relaxation techniques resulted in full symptom resolution. For lumbar osteochondrosis complicated by L5-S1 disc herniation, iontophoresis with a DMSO-procaine solution (anode with mixture, cathode with pure DMSO, current up to 15 mA for 15 minutes, every other day for 10–12 sessions) was part of a 21-day comprehensive rehabilitation program that improved static/dynamic spinal function, reduced pain, and normalized humoral immunity markers (increased IgG, IgM, IgA levels).

Compresses with DMSO solution mixed with procaine were also recommended for acute-phase pain relief in dorsalgia from disc herniations,¹ including one study where it (and other therapies) reduced illness duration and sick leave by 42%.

Sciatica

Sciatica was one of the conditions most frequently reported to respond to DMSO, with readers describing relief ranging from immediate symptom reduction to complete resolution over days to weeks.

Several readers experienced rapid and dramatic relief. One whose husband had been out of work for four weeks with severe sciatica started DMSO on a Saturday afternoon, applied it every four hours, and he returned to work on Monday.¹ A reader with a year of excruciating sciatica reported it was “cured in 2 weeks of regular use, topically with castor oil,^⬖”¹ and another’s 79-year-old mother who had been bedridden for three weeks with sciatica was out of bed the day after her first application.¹

Many readers with chronic sciatica (lasting months to years) reported 90–95% or greater improvement,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} often describing DMSO as the first treatment to provide meaningful relief after failing physical therapy, chiropractic care, injections, and medications.^1,2,3,4,5 Additional readers reported sciatica improvement from topical DMSO (typically applied to the lower back, buttock, and down the leg),^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46} with several noting that combining DMSO with castor oil,^⬖1,2,3,4,5 CBD,^⬖1,2 or peppermint oil^⬖1,2 enhanced the effect.

Note: DMSO can significantly increase the potency of drugs and one reader who combined DMSO with CBD^⬖ stated the combination was far too strong for him.¹

Additionally, in a study of subpiriform sciatic neuropathy (55 patients across four clinical variants), DMSO with novocaine was applied topically to the gluteal region, piriformis muscle area, and along the sciatic nerve path on the posterior thigh, as part of a differentiated multimodal protocol (including piriformis blocks, muscle relaxation techniques, muscle relaxants, magnetolaser therapy, and other therapies). Compared to 47 patients receiving standard therapy, the DMSO-containing protocol produced superior pain reduction on VAS (e.g., 71.4 to 20.2 vs. 36.2), greater muscle strength recovery, decreased piriformis tension, paresthesia resolution, and improved EMG parameters.

Neck Pain and Stiffness

Topical DMSO applied to the neck produced rapid improvements across a wide range of cervical conditions. Readers consistently reported pain reduction of 80–100%,^1,2,3,4,5,6 often within minutes,^1,2,3,4 with many noting restored range of motion they had not had for years.^1,2,3,4,5,6 A 55-year-old whose neck pain had persisted since a car wreck at age 19 (and did not respond to surgery) was "100% pain free in 1.5 hours" after a family physician applied DMSO gel.¹ A 78-year-old with five rear-end car accidents over decades, spinal stenosis, and bone spurs started oral DMSO two years ago and now walks three miles daily with only occasional shoulder pain remaining.¹

Neck mobility improvements were particularly striking. One reader's neck rotation "increased 30 degrees each way in the first week," causing them to almost cry while driving upon realizing the change.¹ After an electric scooter crash producing a severe trapezius/whiplash injury, another reader endured two weeks of excruciating pain and only two hours of sleep per night despite multiple treatments until a morning application of oral and topical DMSO eliminated the pain within 15 minutes¹ (similar significant scooter injuries in other readers also resolved, including one 20 years after the original accident^1,2 as did other whiplash injuries^1,2).

Additional readers reported relief from chronic neck pain,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42} with several noting improved sleep^1,2 and reduced medication use.¹

Note: several readers who applied DMSO to the neck for pain incidentally discovered improvement in tinnitus,^1,2,3 consistent with the cervical nerve/auditory nerve proximity and DMSO improving circulation and nerve function (e.g., one with tinnitus that had “gone off the scale” found it “receded into a different league” within four days of spraying DMSO inside the ear and on the side and back of the neck¹). Based on the feedback I’ve received, DMSO alone seems to be about 50/50 in improving or treating tinnitus, which I believe is in part due to tinnitus having many different causes (which vary in their responsiveness to DMSO) and how DMSO is being applied.

A reader with post-traumatic brain injury, cervical instability, and a CSF leak reported that even small doses of oral DMSO lowered intracranial pressure and produced “less fluid retention during the day so less urination at night (massive improvement), better long-sighted eyesight, and improved bowel function,” noting: “I thought I was a certain case headed for dementia, now I have hope.”¹ Another reader with a brain, head, and neck injury with CSF leak reported DMSO “transformed my many symptoms.”¹

Cervical Disc and Vertebral Conditions

Readers with diagnosed cervical disc degeneration, herniations, and stenosis reported significant improvements. Multiple readers with conditions at specific vertebral levels (C3-C4, C4-C5, C5-C6, C5-C7) reported 80–90% pain reduction, often within minutes of application, with continued improvement over weeks to months of use.^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}

Additional reports of cervical condition improvements include cervical spondylitis or spondylosis,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} cervical arthritis,^1,2 and post-neck-surgery pain.^1,2,3,4,5,6

Disc Herniation Enzyme Iontophoresis

Iontophoresis with DMSO is frequently used to topically deliver therapeutic agents to ailing discs. For example, in 115 patients with lumbar disc herniations treated via percutaneous laser vaporization, postoperative iontophoresis with DMSO-procaine contributed to favorable outcomes in 86% at one-year follow-up, with pain reduction by 2 points on VAS in 99 patients within 3 days.

One of the most extensively documented applications of DMSO in spinal medicine involves its use as a penetration enhancer for Karipain (Karipazim), a proteolytic enzyme preparation derived from papaya latex containing papain,^⬖ chymopapain, proteinase, and lysozyme. In a standardized protocol used across dozens of Russian clinical centers, DMSO added Karipain (dissolved physiological saline), is applied via positive-pole iontophoresis 1-2 times a day for a few months.

In well over a dozen studies, this protocol has been reported to reduce hernia size by 2–7 mm (and volume by up to 52%) on MRI in 75–98% of patients, avoid surgery in approximately 45%, and produce significant improvements across pain and functional measures: McGill Pain Questionnaire index decreasing by 54–72%, Oswestry disability by 33–54%, Roland-Morris by 58–76%, VAS pain scales by 29–66%, LANSS neuropathic pain scores by 44%, Zung anxiety by 50–60%, and EuroQol-5D/SF-36 quality of life by 10–56%. Additional documented benefits include normalized regional hemodynamics (13% venous outflow increase, 29% venous tone decrease), restored motor unit function on electroneuromyography, Lasegue symptom reduction by 61%, improved segmental spinal motion, reduced muscle tone indices, and pain beginning to improve after two days of treatment.^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32}

In the largest individual studies, 221 patients with cervical and lumbar disc herniations showed significant reduction in anterior-posterior hernia dimensions on spiral CT in 98.2% after two courses of 20 iontophoresis procedures; in 80 patients with lumbosacral disc herniations, acupuncture followed by 8 courses of DMSO Karipazim iontophoresis caused 75% to show hernia reduction of 2–5 mm on imaging (with prolonged remissions and reduced relapses); and in 54 patients, the addition of DMSO Karipazim iontophoresis to magnetotherapy and Trabert currents showed higher rehabilitation efficacy than the same protocol without enzyme treatment. In two studies of patients with degenerative lumbar spinal canal stenosis (165 and 110 patients respectively), caripapain iontophoresis with DMSO was part of a multimodal conservative regimen; overall outcomes per MacNab scale were excellent or good in 55–84.5% of patients.^1,2,3

Morphological studies demonstrated that papain administered via DMSO-enhanced methods had positive therapeutic effects on intervertebral discs,¹ and enzyme therapy combined with DMSO-enhanced diadynamophoresis was used in over 8,500 patients across Armenian medical establishments.^1,2

Note: in cases where iontophoresis was contraindicated, phonophoresis of Karipain mixed with indomethacin ointment was used as an alternative, with DMSO included to enhance penetration.^1,2 A newer formulation¹ (Karipain Plus, containing added collagenase and bromelain^⬖) showed 15–18% higher efficacy than prior papain preparations, and some centers also used ultraphonophoresis of DMSO with lidase (hyaluronidase) as an alternative enzyme delivery method, contributing to reduced pain, improved spinal mobility, and decreased recurrence frequency.¹ One study found that phonophoresis of caripazim gel (eliminating the need for DMSO as penetration enhancer) combined with DAVID diagnostic-rehabilitation trainers produced faster pain reduction and better functional restoration than the standard iontophoresis protocol.¹ Additionally, a patent for treating inflammatory-degenerative spinal diseases referenced DMSO as a universal solvent for drugs not soluble in water or alcohol for iontophoresis.

Spinal Stenosis and Spondylolisthesis

Readers with diagnosed spinal stenosis reported significant improvements. One reader with moderate to severe cervical stenosis (worst at C3-C5, with additional lumbar and thoracic involvement) that had required hospitalization reported “life-changing” improvements and full range of neck motion after DMSO.¹

One with “severe spinal stenosis and a slipped disk” who was not a candidate for surgery and had no relief from pain injections described DMSO as giving them “my life back.”¹ Another with stenosis and spondylolisthesis who had discontinued opioids after a decade found topical DMSO “kept me moving” with rare need for NSAIDs.¹ A 75-year-old with grade 1 spondylolisthesis and severe spinal stenosis at L4-L5 reported DMSO “reduces, even removes the pain for a few hours” and combined with other therapies made them “noticeably more functional,”¹ while another with 20% forward slippage of L4 over L5 found DMSO “reduced my perceptions of pain considerably”¹ (and noted an unexpected side effect of transient erections from larger doses, which they attributed to improved pelvic blood flow—something numerous other readers here have also reported alongside prostate improvements). A reader with grade 3 spondylolisthesis at L5-S1 (with bulging discs, nerve compression, and stenosis at levels above, making fusion inadvisable) who had discontinued epidural steroids after they damaged bone density reported DMSO was “the only thing that works,” producing entirely pain-free days after years of unrelenting chronic pain.¹ Others with foraminal stenosis,¹ stenoses at various levels^1,2 and spondylolisthesis at various levels^1,2 also reported pain relief. One reader with a similar L4-over-L5 slippage (triggered by a decades-old motorcycle injury) causing six years of daily pain found topical DMSO largely eliminated his back pain.¹

Disc Herniation Reports

Reader reports of DMSO treating disc herniations are amongst the most dramatic I’ve received. Most remarkably, a reader whose 12.5 mm bulging disc had left them unable to stand without crying reported that after seven days of DMSO use, they could stand, and after seven months, imaging showed the disc had shrunk to 3–4 mm without surgery.^1,2 A reader with a herniated L5-S1 disc who had been confined to bed for seven months and unable to stand reported being able to stand and return to physiotherapy within six weeks of oral DMSO.¹ One with symptoms heading toward cauda equina syndrome (from multiple disc compressions—making it urgent to address immediately) declined surgery and found relief through spine decompression therapy combined with topical DMSO and THC cream.^⬖1

Other readers with confirmed disc herniations reported similar patterns: pain elimination within days to weeks,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11},¹² reduced need for epidural injections,¹ healing slipped disc with castor oil,¹ and functional recovery sufficient to return to work and normal activities.^1,2,3,4

Readers with degenerative disc disease similarly reported significant relief,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25} with several noting DMSO was the first treatment to provide meaningful improvement after years of failed therapies, and one reader whose wife’s 50-year-old disc injury (sky diving accident) had been considered untreatable finding that topical DMSO (combined with other therapies), to her doctor’s astonishment, appeared to be healing the disc.¹

Intradiscal Injection Therapy

In two studies, a mixture of glucosamine,^⬖ chondroitin sulfate,^⬖ concentrated sugar water (dextrose), and DMSO were injected into the damaged spinal discs of patients who had severe, long-lasting back pain confirmed to originate from the discs. In the initial pilot study, disability and pain scores each improved approximately 50% at 12-month follow-up, with 57% of patients achieving marked improvement (72% disability reduction, 76% pain reduction) while 43% (predominantly those with prior failed surgery, long-term disability, or spinal stenosis) showed minimal benefit. A subsequent comparative study (35 injection patients vs. 74 intradiscal electrothermal therapy patients) found slightly greater pain relief with injections than IDET (2.2 vs. 1.27 VAS improvement), higher satisfaction (65.6% vs. 47.8%), and no patients worsening versus 35.8% with IDET.

In rat models of nucleus pulposus-induced inflammatory radicular pain, epidural osthole^⬖ repeatedly improved mechanical and thermal pain thresholds while reducing inflammatory mediators through multiple pathways (CGRPR1, p38/IL-18, Wnt3a/β-catenin, and CXCL1/CXCR2) in the spinal dorsal horn and dorsal root ganglia.^1,2,3,4,5 A p38 MAPK inhibitor delivered epidurally similarly improved mechanical thresholds and reduced phosphorylated p38 in the same model. In a spine fusion study, Oxy133 dissolved in DMSO produced solid fusions with bone densities comparable to BMP2 while significantly reducing adipocyte formation, suggesting potential as an alternative to rhBMP2.

Aspirin Ultraphonophoresis with DMSO

DMSO was repeatedly used to dissolve acetylsalicylic acid for ultrasound phonophoresis treating radicular and reflex syndromes of lumbar osteochondrosis.^1,2 In a comparative analysis of 114 patients versus 205 with a prototype method, this DMSO-based phonophoresis yielded pain relief after 5–6 procedures in 78% (versus 12–15 procedures in 60%), significant improvement in 81.7% (versus 73.8%), and faster overall clinical improvement in 80% within 8–10 days. A separate study of lumbosacral dorsopathies found overall improvement in 75% of reflex and 80% of radicular syndromes, while an earlier study of 144 patients reported efficacy in 71% of radicular and 60.5% of reflex syndromes, with improvement rates varying by pain severity (57.3% for severe, 75% for mild).

DMSO Formulations

The Chondroxide ointment (containing chondroitin sulfate^⬖ and DMSO) applied via ultraphonophoresis improved range of motion, reduced muscle tone, and significantly decreased pain (VAS from 6.1 to 2.4 cm) in 30 patients with cervical osteochondrosis and scapulohumeral periarthrosis over 10 days. In vertebrogenic pain syndrome, ultraphonophoresis of a DMSO Chondroxide ointment showed significantly greater pain reduction by days 6-7 compared to traditional therapy alone. Chondroxide is considered one of the most studied chondroprotectors in practice, with DMSO providing both anti-inflammatory/analgesic effects and enhanced penetration of chondroitin sulfate^⬖ (a cartilage component) to deep tissues.

A patented DMSO gel formulation demonstrated stable anti-inflammatory efficacy comparable to standard DMSO ointments in animal testing (reducing kaolin-induced paw edema by approximately 63-74% at 5 hours versus 108% in controls), with high stability (no separation over 180 days at room temperature), convenient non-greasy application, and no toxicity or irritation. A comprehensive Russian review recommended DMSO gel for complex therapy of rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, osteoarthritis, arthropathies, radiculitis, neuralgia, trauma, and nodular erythema.^1,2

Ankylosing Spondylitis

In a mouse model of ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a VEGFR2 inhibitor in DMSO significantly reduced ectopic ossification and spinal destruction in proteoglycan-induced arthritis mice. Additionally, dopan dissolved in DMSO was administered via transdermal iontophoresis along the spine in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, with the two-stage protocol (general followed by local joint applications) shortening treatment duration and producing significant immunological improvements including reductions in ESR, fibrinogen, C-reactive protein, and immunoglobulins.

Multiple readers with ankylosing spondylitis reported dramatic improvements from DMSO. Two readers with 23+ year histories of AS (one with 29 fractures from prescription drug complications) reported being off all medications and thriving, with one no longer needing daily DMSO.^1,2,3 A reader who started topical DMSO on their knees for AS found that within an hour “I could feel a difference” and could walk stairs normally for the first time in years; after two months, their CRP inflammatory marker dropped from a chronic 9–12 to 3 (near remission levels), with DMSO being the only change made.¹ One reader reported “literally ZERO lumbar pain” after one week.¹ Others with AS or autoimmune spondylitis reported significant pain and inflammation reduction.^1,2

Additional Spinal MSK Protocols

•For photodynamic therapy of spinal complications (including vertebral osteochondrosis, disc herniations, and carpal tunnel syndrome), a protocol using a photosensitizer mixed with DMSO applied to the skin for 20 minutes before laser irradiation achieved pain elimination in 70% and overall efficacy in 90% of 50 patients within 4 months, with treatment duration reduced by 4–8 weeks compared to controls. For occupational cervicobrachial syndrome, two studies (22 and 103 patients) included DMSO ionophoresis as part of multimodal conservative treatment, with acute pain relieved within 3–4 days and overall pain severity decreased significantly over 12–14 days.^1,2

•DMSO has been used across several protocols targeting pathological calcium deposits. DMSO was included in a decalcifying solution (with zinc sulfate,^⬖ potassium iodide,^⬖ and magnesium sulfate^⬖) applied as compresses or via ionophoresis to spine and joints with heterotopic ossification, resulting in reduced pain, improved mobility, and symptom resolution lasting months. In an anecdotal case report, topical DMSO mixed with pure ascorbic acid^⬖ powder (applied as a thin paste) reduced spinal stenosis symptoms caused by solid calcium deposits by approximately 80% over six months of intermittent treatment, with the same preparation rapidly resolving symptomatic calcium deposits at other anatomical sites^1,2 Likewise, a reader’s husband had a calcium deposit in his shoulder preventing all arm movement with extreme pain: “Within a minute he could move his arm and the pain went away for hours.”¹

•For severe lumbar osteochondrosis with motor disorders and pelvic organ dysfunction, transdermal applications of proserin (an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor) in DMSO applied over affected spinal cord segments for 6 hours daily over 10 days improved microcirculation and stimulated synaptic conductance. For postmenopausal osteoporosis with vertebral compression fractures, laserophoresis of a hyaluronic acid^⬖-DMSO gel resulted in 68% pain reduction (VAS) and improved mobility in 29 elderly patients. For pain in vertebral fractures complicating systemic osteoporosis, cold compress applications of DMSO mixed with procaine, diphenhydramine, vitamin B12,^⬖ and diclofenac were recommended.

•In disc degeneration, atractylenolide I^⬖ (in DMSO) inhibited JAK2/STAT3 pathway activation and reduced apoptosis in human nucleus pulposus cells. In humeroscapular periarthrosis, DMSO applications were used alongside glucocorticoid blocks in 91 patients, though standard therapy achieved lasting relief in only 52.7%, with superior outcomes from added phonophoresis of Karipazim mixed with chondroxide and indomethacin ointments.

•For surgery of lumbar scoliosis (with associated spinal stenosis), phonophoresis with hydrocortisone, naclofen, and lidocaine combined with DMSO contributed to pain improvement and neurological deficit regression in 95% of patients. Readers with scoliosis also reported meaningful pain relief from topical DMSO: one with severe scoliosis (50/50 degree curves) found that DMSO with castor oil^⬖ eliminated most pain “in 5 seconds,”¹ another who had been on pain medication for 15 years and unable to sit without pain “was able to sit without pain for the first time in 15 years,”¹ and a 78-year-old family physician with severe thoracolumbar kyphoscoliosis who had declined extensive surgery and found Tramadol ineffective reported that daily oral and topical DMSO made him more active than he had been 40 years earlier (walking 45 minutes daily and lifting weights twice weekly).¹ Others reported reduced pain and improved daily function.^1,2,3,4,5

•In a novel approach to spinal instability, artificial fibromatization of interspinous ligaments was performed using electrocoagulation followed by a dressing with a DMSO solution, as a minimally invasive prophylaxis against “spinal cord syndrome” in the postoperative period. For ibuprofen-DMSO ionophoresis along the spine in 37 children with active rheumatism, preliminary data indicated the method was promising and superior to existing approaches.

•At a Russian military sanatorium treating victims of terrorist attacks and other emergencies, a DMSO solution was among the most frequently used agents for neurological patients (primarily dorsopathies, 66.3%, and cerebrovascular diseases, 35.6%), administered as part of standardized 21-day iontophoresis rehabilitation courses. DMSO applications were also recommended for vertebrogenic pain syndromes in children, and successfully utilized in conjunction with procaine in a study of 105 children (aged 5-18) with headaches and cervical spine disorders.^1,2,3

•DMSO mixed with procaine was used for topical treatment prior to spinal traction in lumbar osteochondrosis. In one clinical study of patients with compressive radiculopathies, hourly DMSO-procaine compresses applied to the pelvic-gluteal area before traction reduced treatment duration by 3–4 days, eliminated vertebral pain syndrome in as few as 1–5 sessions, and achieved stable remission lasting at least 1 year; a separate literature review independently recommended the same protocol, and another review cited DMSO with procaine as an effective treatment for back pain.

•Additionally, DMSO is included in the Dolobene gel formulation (DMSO-heparin-dexpanthenol), which appears in European and Russian clinical practice as a topical ointment for spinal pain. A Czech physiotherapy textbook and German review listed Dolobene gel among recommended ointments for muscle contractures and spasms in acute vertebrogenic disease, in 36 patients it was incorporated into a rehabilitation protocol for shoulder periarthritic syndrome (targeting both the cervical and thoracic spine), and a Russian patent prescribed it as a topical adjunct for residual trigger points after epidural injections for lumbar radicular pain.

•An “Espol” ointment containing combined with capsicum^⬖ extract and coriander essential oil^⬖ was formulated for neuralgias, radiculitis, and myositis. DMSO with procaine was also recommended as preparation for acupressure massage in muscle-tonic and myofascial syndromes. A clay-based balm (Kavalgin) incorporating DMSO as a penetration enhancer alongside propolis^⬖ and laurel essential oil^⬖ was patented for treating neuritis, neuralgia, osteochondrosis, and sciatica.

•Lastly, national Russian clinical guidelines (e.g., ATOR 2014 for spinal osteochondrosis) recommended DMSO for use in diadynamic therapy ionophoresis as a topical analgesic/anti-inflammatory agent following decompression lumbar spine surgery. DMSO applications are a standard component listed in clinical guidelines and treatment protocols for back pain across the Russian, Ukrainian, and Uzbek medical literature^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22}

Sixty Years of Preventable Suffering

I’ve done my best to compile the extensive (and largely forgotten) evidence showing DMSO works for spinal conditions, from acute spinal cord injuries where paralysis was prevented or reversed, to the degenerative disc herniations, radiculopathies, and chronic pain syndromes that affect millions. Across approximately 400 studies and 300 reader testimonials, the same basic reality keeps showing up: DMSO’s combination of properties allows it to address the many different causes of spinal disease in a way no single conventional therapy can.

Veterinarians have been using IV DMSO for paralyzed animals for over four decades, with textbooks from the 1980s already listing standardized protocols, yet a human patient with a spinal cord injury is still told nothing can be done (and likewise to quote one reader, after DMSO use allowed them to avoid the back fusion their surgeon had recommended reported the surgeon had “zero curiosity” when told what had worked¹).

Every year, tens of thousands of people are consigned to permanent paralysis, wheelchair dependence, loss of bladder and bowel control, chronic pain, bedsores, and drastically shortened lifespans, to say nothing of the toll this takes on their families and the despair that drives the much higher suicide rates seen in this population. That a therapy which routinely gets paralyzed dogs and horses back on their feet has never been seriously tested in human spinal cord injuries, not because it failed, but because the FDA prevented it from ever reaching human trials, is one of the more unconscionable failures of modern medicine.
Note: this indifference extends even to individual success stories: one reader whose

Beyond acute injuries, millions more are trapped on disability by chronic spinal conditions, caught in a system that provides just enough to survive but strips away autonomy, purpose, and hope. Having evaluated numerous disability claims, I cannot begin to describe how frustrating it was to see how many people came through whose lives could have been easily restored with DMSO, to say nothing of the enormous social and economic costs their widespread but unnecessary disability entails.

Russian and Eastern European clinicians have similarly accumulated decades of clinical experience using DMSO for disc herniations, radiculopathies, and osteochondrosis (often via iontophoresis or in combination with enzyme therapy), yet these protocols remain virtually unknown in Western medicine. Fortunately hundreds of readers with chronic back pain, sciatica, failed spinal surgeries, and spinal stenosis have independently discovered that an inexpensive, readily available substance transformed conditions they had suffered with for years or decades.

I consider it a testament to how tightly information is controlled that almost no one in our culture knows about the simple solution DMSO provides, while simultaneously feel profoundly grateful we have at last reached an era where long-hidden truths like this can at last be revealed and I thank each of you for the support which has made it possible to finally get messages like these out.

In the section that follows, I will provide:

•Practical guidance on sourcing DMSO (including how to obtain sterile IV DMSO from compounding pharmacies at a fraction of current prices),
•Detailed dosing protocols for topical, oral, and intravenous use
•The specific clinical spinal dosing protocols summarized from the Russian and Eastern European studies above (for back pain, trigger points, cervical radiculopathy, sciatica, disc herniation enzyme iontophoresis, and more).
•Treatment approaches for neuropathies and neuropathic pain (which will be the focus of the next part of this series), spinal cord injuries, spasticity, arachnoiditis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cognitive impairment, chronic stress, and other neurological conditions discussed in this series (e.g., developmental delay, fatigue, brain fog, psychiatric disorders, Down syndrome, or anesthesia toxicity).

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• No industry, organization, or cause tasked with solving a problem will actually solve it, because the problem disappearing threatens their economic livelihood or political power—a dynamic visible everywhere from non-profits which constantly seek donations but never produce results to dating apps that deliberately prevent users from finding partners and leaving the platform.

• The pharmaceutical industry has perfected this model: drugs are designed to be taken perpetually rather than cure, side effects create demand for additional drugs, and the entire regulatory apparatus is structured to protect this status quo by suppressing affordable natural therapies like DMSO that challenge it.

• SSRIs epitomize this dynamic—massively overprescribed, frequently life-ruining, and nearly impossible to withdraw from—yet for decades, the industry successfully kept all criticism of them out of mainstream discourse.

• Recently, efforts to connect SSRIs to mass shootings shifted the Overton window, making SSRI injuries gradually become acceptable to discuss, culminating in Secretary Kennedy recently holding a panel where victims shared devastating testimonies of what SSRIs had done to their lives.

• Kennedy then announced a multiagency federal effort to combat inappropriate SSRI prescribing, train providers in how to correctly taper patients off antidepressants, and provide non-pharmaceutical alternatives—marking the first time in memory a federal health initiative has aimed to help get patients off a major drug class rather than on one.

• Conversely, those who embrace the constant challenge of actually solving problems rather than managing them—in medicine and elsewhere—consistently find it is the most fulfilling way to practice, which is why Kennedy's approach of giving physicians a supportive framework to break from the status quo holds so much promise.

When I was in high school, I observed a few discouraging events which led me to postulate: “no industry, organization or cause tasked with solving a problem will actually solve it because the problem disappearing threatens their economic livelihood or political power.” Since that time, I have observed more examples than I can count in so many different spheres that I’ve accepted this dynamic is a common feature of society, and likewise, have come across many similar observations by others, my favorite of which was:

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program—Milton Friedman

Recently two noteworthy examples of this principle came to my attention.

First, a frustrated patient shared with me they’d recently learned all of the online dating apps had switched from formats which allowed people to find suitable long term partners (e.g., with lengthy compatibility surveys) to ones which prevented people from matching because if someone found a good match on a platform, they would then stop paying more money for the service, whereas if they were hooked on it and spending hours each day trying to find someone, they would be a sustainable source of revenue. More remarkably, once one company figured out this approach made more money, they bought out all of their competitors (sometimes with threats of spurious lawsuits) and shifted them all over to this predatory model as well (all of which is detailed in these six articles^1,2,3,4,5,6). I found this example noteworthy as:

• One of the greatest sources of distress I find in patients (particularly now) are relationship challenges, particularly a lack of one, and I believe much of this traces back to apps taking over courtship.

• Beyond the personal cost this dynamic creates, one of the largest challenges most developed countries are facing is a low birthrate which is primarily due to low marriage rates. My belief, in turn, is that many of the heavily contested policies we are seeing (e.g., reducing social support for the elderly, mass migration, or replacing workers with robots or AI) ultimately are due to the fact policy makers believe the declining birthrate means it will not be viable for the younger generation to support the society (particularly the elderly) so alternatives need to be found regardless of how objectionable they are.

• A common cycle predatory industries in America follow is presenting a “superior” way to meet an essential need of humanity that replaces the traditional one that’s worked, then once the old one is completely displaced, tightening the screws with the new one (to milk as much out of the population as possible) until things are far worse than what preceded it and massive social cost is accrued (e.g., the Rockefellers did this in various ways with food, energy, and medicine).

Note: because online dating has now become so bad, the companies that monopolized the market are starting to lose a lot of users and money, signaling there may be a chance for this cycle to reset itself.

Second, a federal DOJ indictment recently charged the SPLC (one of the country’s leading civil rights groups that built its reputation fighting hate) with wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. Prosecutors alleged it paid over $3 million in donor funds to informants embedded in white supremacist groups (including the KKK and National Alliance) while soliciting donations to “end hate,” and that one paid informant participated in planning chats, attended, and helped with logistics for the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. Many, in turn, were outraged about this, in part because of how much political capital was extracted from the event (e.g., Biden made opposing it a central justification for his 2020 presidential campaign and Harris to a lesser extent did so as well in 2024) but also because of just how much money it made:

Unfortunately, these are far from isolated examples, and it would be impossible for me to cover even a sliver of them here. As such, this article will focus on how this principle applies to medicine and why I believe beyond greed, complacency also plays a central role in the continual recurrence of this dynamic across societies.

Is Money The Root Of All Evil?

The origins of our faith and devotion to money have raised many questions throughout the ages. The love of money, in turn, has long been recognized as one of the most powerful forces for twisting human hearts towards evil (which often results in immense destruction to the people or the environment), while simultaneously, its value is often completely arbitrary—money gets printed and then assumes value because everyone holds a collective faith in it the ruling class controls us through. At the same time, money is a remarkable force for both developing and organizing society, and many of the things we depend upon are only available to us because of the economic system we live within.

When the question of money is looked at, it is often seen through a lens of greed being a deadly sin. However, I would argue the core issue is that for many people, effectively accumulating money becomes the foundational axiom (guiding principle) used to navigate life, causing them to rationalize a variety of unethical positions (they often lie about) to make money, because their internal algorithm will frequently default to the choice that acquires more money. Recognizing this, in turn, provides an invaluable tool for understanding the world around you, as the motivations of others often become far clearer once you cut through all their rhetoric and view things strictly through what they stand to profit from.

Algorithms of Business

In the same way that a default behavior to seek the most profitable choice helps to explain many of the individual actions we observe around us, businesses also follow a relatively predictable set of behaviors aimed at optimizing profit, which you can see in a wide range of industries.

In general, most large businesses aim for the following, prioritizing whichever are most feasible:

• Continual growth

• High markups on their product

• The widest possible market

• Market exclusivity (to protect and maximize sales)

• Repeating sales far into the future

The main problem with this framework, which society largely applauds and equates with success, is that businesses routinely prioritize profit, even when it conflicts with the interests of customers or society. Because of this, we frequently see:

• Artificial “needs” being created through marketing, making unnecessary products seem essential.

• Harmful products (environmentally damaging or toxic to humans) being aggressively marketed and kept on the market despite the damage.

• Extreme markups on essential products, pushing dependent customers closer to poverty.

• Monopolies and exclusivity tactics used to block competing (and often better) solutions from entering the market.

• Products deliberately designed for repeat purchases rather than full solutions, such as planned obsolescence or proprietary consumables (e.g., Gillette’s classic “razor-and-blades” sales model, and its modern equivalents like Amazon’s sinus irrigator that only works with its expensive proprietary pods that you quickly run out of).

The pharmaceutical industry, not surprisingly, excels in all of these, which helps to explain why they have managed to sustain steady growth for decades, and why one-fifth of all money spent in the United States goes to healthcare despite our country receiving very poor returns on that investment.

Note: annual adult vaccines (which frequently do nothing. particularly because they are often for the wrong strain) are an excellent example of an unsafe, unproven and ineffective product that is pushed on everyone because it fulfills the need for perpetually recurring sales.

Lifelong Patients

A frequently shared meme highlights that members of the medical community frequently face the same dilemma dating companies do.

The more time I’ve spent in medicine, the more I’ve come to appreciate that many principles you see in business are not only replicated in medicine but inevitably will guide medical practice. For example, much of modern medicine is only possible because it has successfully made the case it represents the “pinnacle of science” and that medical services are both essential and deserve a premium price far exceeding what anyone else has paid historically (which allows immense amounts of American money to be invested into creating medical infrastructure and developing new therapies).

At the same time, this creates an inherent conflict of interest for the entire profession, as if major disease categories are “solved,” the lobbying power (which the industry depends upon) is reduced, and funds allotted to treating or researching that condition dry up. Most importantly, the entire industry (and regulatory apparatus) is structured around this status quo, so anytime someone tries to deviate from it, countless stakeholders will emerge to oppose it.

This was best demonstrated by a 2018 report which provoked considerable public outrage when it was publicized by the mainstream media:

Note: while I can’t prove this, given how rarely the media will expose pharmaceutical misconduct, I believe the reason it did in this specific case was not to help the public but rather to send a message to the industry (and investors) to avoid curative genomic therapies.

All of this, I believe, helps explain why, while many competing therapies will always exist, the medical industry (and regulators) will only target the ones with the potential to scale up enough to meaningfully compete with their bottom line (e.g., we all saw what happened to the off-patent COVID-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin). In contrast, there are many effective alternative therapies I know of which receive very little pushback from the industry because it will never be possible to deploy them at a scale which meaningfully threatens the industry’s bottom line.

That likewise touches upon a core dilemma I face writing this newsletter: many of the approaches we use (like neural therapy) which (often rapidly) get excellent results for patients are offered by very few physicians and require extensive training to administer optimally. As such, if I focus on them, it’s essentially useless information, as most readers will just feel frustrated they can’t access the therapy (or might end up with someone who does not correctly administer it to them). Likewise, there are many excellent therapies we sometimes use, but in very similar cases don’t, because their interactions with the body make them inherently unsuited for universal protocols (which is a big part of why I have not focused on cancer treatments here).

Because of this, I chose to discuss the therapies we use just enough so that when someone who is likely to benefit from them gets the opportunity to use them, they will be able to recognize the value of that opportunity, but I try to refrain from reaching the point where I feel I’m just wasting your time by telling you about something you won’t be able to use.

Conversely, I have put an immense degree of effort into presenting and accurately laying out how DMSO works, what it can treat and how to use it here because it’s very safe (and costs close to nothing), it has a very wide range of conditions it treats (including many “incurable” ones), and it’s effective enough that the majority of people who use it will experience significant benefit (which is why I’ve now received over 6,000 DMSO reports from readers and this newsletter has reached so many people).

However, despite the focus I’ve given to DMSO here, it’s not actually the primary thing we use in practice. Rather, prior to starting this project, my position was:

• DMSO (especially IV DMSO) is life-changing for challenging neurological conditions, especially strokes (discussed here and here).

• DMSO is an excellent first aid tool (e.g., for injuries or burns) that if possible should always be in your first aid kit.

• DMSO is a significantly more effective and vastly safer NSAID (or Tylenol) alternative for treating tissue injuries and pain (discussed here) and one of the most potent anti-inflammatory options out there—which some patients really need (discussed here).

• You can do a lot of really useful things by combining DMSO with another (typically natural) agent and applying it to the skin (discussed here and here).

• DMSO is very helpful for herpes and one of the few ways you can reverse antibiotic resistance (discussed here).

• DMSO has a lot of different therapeutic effects, most of which are similar to what many of our preferred therapies do. However, the key difference is that DMSO is more broad but less potent than them.

As such, DMSO was more of a “tool in the toolbox” I used when it made sense rather than my primary modality, and I was mostly just outraged it had not seen wider adoption for some of these uses (e.g., strokes or an ibuprofen alternative) since there is such a massive need to have better therapeutic options in those cases (making it be one of the clearest examples of FDA malfeasance, particularly since the FDA stonewalled it for decades despite extensive proof it worked, widespread public and scientific protest, and multiple Congressional hearings).

So, when I started this series, my goal was essentially to elucidate those six points, provide something beneficial everyone here could actually use without needing a difficult to find expert in the field, and try to put 3 months (or maybe 6) into it because I felt the subject had not been given the attention it deserved. Put differently, I never expected DMSO to be the focus of this newsletter or that years of my life would go into researching it (there are other therapies I planned to extensively discuss here). That essentially happened because:

•I saw that there was vastly more pertinent DMSO literature than I had initially imagined (much of which exists outside the databases AI systems use and hence is unlikely to ever be seen).

•From that I discovered DMSO excelled in certain conditions I had not previously known its value in, many of which otherwise are quite hard to treat (e.g., for the eyes and for the lungs).

•The efficacy readers were reporting for DMSO (across a broad swathe of ailments) was higher than what we’d seen since it was rarely the primary therapy we utilized.

•I realized DMSO (due to its ability to partially improve a variety of critical but immensely underappreciated aspects of health) provided an excellent vehicle for elucidating many of the concepts I’d wanted to cover.

•Due to the difficulty of this project and DMSO costing so little that no advertiser will make enough to fund promoting it, I realized it was unlikely anyone else would take the time to compile all the relevant information on DMSO, so it felt like I had an obligation to do the project.

Medical Sales Funnels

In many ways, addictive street drugs represent the purest distillation of the business framework I outlined earlier: it’s easy to continually expand the market by creating new addicts, once people are addicted they will do anything to get the drug (making it possible to sell at a high markup and ensure a large volume of repeating sales), and because it’s so profitable, funding is available to neutralize competitors (e.g., with cartel violence) so market exclusivity is maintained.

Conversely, this business model comes with a massive cost, as it not only removes its customers from productively contributing to society (as their lives are lost to addiction) but also disrupts the lives of those around them (e.g., through the crime needed to fund addictions, turf violence as rival groups compete for customers, and increasing corruption as they try to rope the government into supporting their enterprise). Because of this, for centuries this “ideal” business model has recurred across societies regardless of how harsh the measures governments take to stop it.

One of the most common critiques of the pharmaceutical industry is that the entire enterprise is a more sophisticated form of this model: the drugs that are widely sold are designed to hook people for life and the immense lobbying the industry can afford (so the government supports them) effectively takes the place of cartel violence to maintain their market monopoly.

Note: other common criticisms include several of the largest pharmaceutical companies (e.g., Bayer via IG Farben) having been deeply entwined with Nazi Germany, and that many major pharma firms were once leading marketers and manufacturers of cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin (Bayer famously marketed heroin as a “non-addictive” wonder drug).

Furthermore, unlike classic drug enterprises which have to market their products from the shadows, the state sanctioning of their business model makes it possible for them to publicly market the products to the entire society, acquire far more customers than an illegal enterprise ever could, and buy out both the media and government so criticisms of their products are not allowed to be aired.

Seeking to maximize profit, the industry hence seeks out "blockbuster" drugs and feeds each one into their robust sales apparatus. For this model to work, as the Goldman Sachs memo illustrates, the drugs need to be taken perpetually so curative ones that are taken briefly are not permissible.
Note: a significant amount of the research I cite in this newsletter originates from less wealthy countries with robust scientific infrastructure (e.g., Russia). I believe this is because those countries cannot afford to subsidize costly perpetual medical care, and hence are motivated to explore less costly options that can cure illnesses and require far fewer administrations.

Fittingly, the medical profession has largely moved away from the language of “cure.” For centuries, major medical dictionaries—including the Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary, Bantam Medical Dictionary, and Barron’s Dictionary of Medical Terms—either omitted a clear definition of “cure” or defined it only minimally.^{1 2} The word is also notably absent from the indexes of core references such as Merck’s Manual and Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine.^{1 2} In practice, physicians are strongly discouraged from promising or even declaring a “cure” in many contexts, particularly for chronic conditions. You cannot be accused of failing to achieve something the profession rarely claims is possible.
Note: while this linguistic caution is understandable as it helps protect patients from false hope and physicians from liability when relapses occur, it simultaneously fosters a toxic cultural mindset in which “managing” chronic conditions becomes the ceiling rather than the floor, discouraging both doctors and patients from diligently pursuing root-cause resolution or promising alternative therapies.

Because of this, every successful pharmaceutical lies somewhere along a spectrum of being "addictive" to "ineffective." Much of this results from the fact the body is designed to maintain homeostasis and resist unnatural alterations of physiology, so since most drugs work by inhibiting an enzyme, inhibiting a receptor, or stimulating a receptor, the body will counteract this by creating the opposite effect. As such, the human response to medications is frequently either:
•For the effect to be temporary and only last as long as medication is there
•For progressively higher doses of the medication to be required to elicit the same effect
•For the body to shift to an unnatural baseline where it can no longer function without the artificial counterweight of the medication (which in many cases equates to a chemical dependency and addiction to the drug because of how severe the withdrawals are).

Note: sometimes additional steps are involved. For example, acid reflux frequently results from a lack of stomach acid (which prevents the top of the stomach from getting the signal to close) which argues for supplementing meals with stomach acid (that beyond frequently curing reflux, provides numerous other health benefits). However rather than do this, the preferred approach is to completely suppress stomach acid production so nothing is there to reflux, making it very difficult to stop the medications because once small (insufficient) amounts of acid return, they will reflux and cause heart burn.

Since this business model is so reliable, my view is that it’s inevitable more products than I can count will emerge to support it and it’s an exercise in futility to stop it. Because of that, my focus has been directed to three areas:
•Identifying the (typically non-addictive) pharmaceutical drugs which I nonetheless think make a lot of sense to use in certain contexts.
•Finding better alternatives to the commonly marketed drugs.
•Directing my energy towards opposing the most harmful (rather than useless) medications.

Sadly, despite restricting my focus to the last category, there’s simply no shortage, as beyond the design of pharmaceutical drugs inevitably producing side effects (due to some of the functions they suppress being essential for health), those side effects are often actually an upside for the industry because they create additional problems that require other drugs to treat, hence creating a robust “sales funnel.”

“Sales funnels” for context, are a classic marketing concept: cast a wide net with a low cost (or free) product with a high rate of conversion, pull a certain number of those caught into buying a more expensive product, and then in each successive funnel, get a smaller number of people to buy an even more expensive option.

When observing medicine, I hence cannot help but notice just how many things in it are effectively sales funnels (e.g., general practitioners not only function to provide a steady stream of patient referrals to the more expensive medical services, but also, for “wellness” give patients a large number of tests that convert a significant number of patients into taking the common lifelong drugs which half of American adults are on at least one of).

SSRI Antidepressants

From the start, I decided to focus on SSRIs as while they significantly help a subset of patients, I also feel they are one of the worst offenders on the market. Beyond being massively overprescribed, they frequently ruin people’s lives (often in very cruel ways), are often nearly impossible to withdraw from, and have predatory sales funnels that affect large numbers of American women:

Unfortunately, SSRIs languished in the same place many other toxic drugs did: they harmed a significant number of people but the drugs made enough money (one in six adults take psychiatric medications) that it was possible for industry to corral the entire government and media into sweeping them under the rug, so this issue remained largely unknown outside of those affected by them (whereas with the COVID vaccines, we finally crossed the threshold where so many people were injured it simply was at last not possible to sweep everything under rug).

To try to shift this, I decided to focus not on the common side effects of the drugs (which are easy to ignore if you aren’t directly affected by it), but rather the psychotic violence and mass shootings they occasionally cause. A very strong case existed for this, but up to that point, all the supporting literature for it was either in dense books most people were unlikely to read (e.g., Peter Gøtzsche’s Deadly Psychiatry and Organized Denial) or in news articles which only presented slices of the evidence and did so in an excessively sensationalistic manner unlikely to persuade a neutral reader.

My theory, was that since so much effort has gone into politicizing mass shootings and the ensuing arguments over gun control, the right (segments of which already identified with using fewer psychiatric medications than the left) would be very receptive to the fact SSRIs were triggering many of the shootings being blamed on inadequate gun control. Furthermore, my hope was that once this position was adopted, it would spur an interest by its proponents (e.g., political commentators) into finally looking at all the other far more common side effects SSRIs cause and make enough people talk about them that it was finally an acceptable topic of discourse (as previously, much like vaccines, beyond being ridiculed for believing SSRIs were dangerous, you would also be chastised for hurting patients by reducing their access to these “life-saving” medications).

So, I tried to draft a very clear case for this (along with a follow up explaining the dangers of SSRIs and the corruption that allowed them to come to market) and then (at a time when this newsletter was much smaller) put them out immediately following a school shooting which was large enough to become the national media story. That article^1,2,3 somehow made it to Tucker Carlson, who then, five weeks later, for the first time in the mainstream media, did a segment on the topic for Fox News:

Following this, as more and more political figures on the right were willing to broach the subject, it became a gradually acceptable topic to discuss (e.g., during his 2024 campaign, RFK Jr. shared a thread on the article I wrote stating: “Any conversation about gun violence is incomplete if it doesn’t touch on mental health and the suppressed evidence implicating SSRIs in suicide and homicide”).

Likewise, the successive attention which bubbled up in the alternative media to the frequent side effects of SSRIs (and Secretary Kennedy’s public acknowledgment of it) has gradually brought mainstream attention to this, including at a recent May 4^th panel (covered by the press) which began with victims of SSRIs sharing what they (like many others) have experienced:

Note: Lauren’s story (beginning at 17:00), went viral online due to many being understandably shocked SSRIs could take away your ability to have sex or emotionally connect with your partner.

The panel then concluded with Secretary Kennedy stating we need to do better, that withdrawing from SSRIs is significantly more difficult than withdrawing from heroin, and announcing that the Federal Government would begin combatting this. He laid out a multiagency national effort to do so which will educate health care providers across the country in the dangers of SSRIs (particularly inappropriate prescribing—which is one of the largest issues with SSRIs), provide non-pharmaceutical mental health alternatives, and train providers in how to correctly taper off antidepressants (along with reimbursing them for doing this).

Note: the full panel can be viewed here and here. Additionally, SSRIs are not the only psychiatric with major issues (e.g., last week immediately before this panel I wrote about the many serious issues with benzodiazepines and treating anxiety and at some point I intend to cover the equally problematic antipsychotics).

Despite everything I’ve seen happen over the last four years, I still never believed something like this would happen. For context, in a period when the pharmaceutical industry had much less influence over the FDA, it took more than a decade of activism, leaks and Congressional hearings to simply get a warning label on SSRIs that they could cause suicide. This hence went miles beyond anything even the most optimistic activists had ever imagined could be possible, illustrating why it is so critical to shift the Overton window and make taboo subjects acceptable for regular discussion.

Additionally, it was quite notable that this entire effort goes contrary to the entire foundation of the medical system, as Secretary Kennedy’s ultimate goal was to decrease rather than increase pharmaceutical sales. As such, predictable criticisms of his completely reasonable approach emerged, such as this one from Senator Tina Smith (D-MN):

People I care a whole lot about rely on SSRIs to make their lives work. I don’t know where I would be without SSRIs. RFK Jr. can get his fucking hands and crazy conspiracy theories out of our medicine cabinets”

Protective reactions like these are inevitable, and illustrate precisely why this issue has taken so long to gain traction. But rather than wait for the system to reform itself, my approach has always been to focus on what I can actually offer patients right now.

The Natural Approach to Medicine

Throughout my career, I have tried to prioritize natural therapies, in part because they are often more effective for addressing root causes of illness, but more so, because they simply have less toxicity so you are much less likely to injure people with them. This, essentially, is why, much in the same way I do not critique mediocre drugs I feel provide minimal benefits, I have not focused on many of the same unscrupulous dynamics I've highlighted throughout this article existing within the natural medicine field (e.g., many marginal products are widely pushed simply because they have large profit margins, and a lot of the drama in the health freedom movement over the last few years has ultimately originated from competing parties trying to sink their competitors so they can monopolize sales to this newly created market).

Note: one of the most disillusioning things for me when I entered the natural medicine field was meeting well-known male holistic doctors who rallied against the egregious conduct of the pharmaceutical industry or doctors in general, that then did many of the same things they’d described to their own patients to maximize revenue. From this, I gradually concluded that the more aggressively and audaciously people promoted themselves, the more likely they were to be dishonest.

In my own case, much of my own medical philosophy essentially boils down to:

•Safety is more important than efficacy (so I am very hesitant to use therapies I think have potential risks, and will back off much earlier than others when I see adverse reactions emerge), which in most cases I believe is all-around correct, but simultaneously not appropriate in acute settings (where some degree of harm is often required to save someone’s life).

•If you have to perpetually give someone a therapy, it probably means you are not treating the disease correctly (or only treating the periphery of it), so in those instances (outside of ones where no viable alternative exists such as replacing a critical hormone the body can no longer produce), the focus should always come back to figuring out how to address the underlying illness (which often requires untangling some type of complex connected web in the body or the body, mind, and spirit).

•People frequently develop tolerances or sensitivities to therapies, so if something does work, you only want to use it when it’s clearly needed to avoid being caught in a situation where it doesn’t work when it’s really needed.

As you can imagine, these beliefs aren’t particularly common as they go against the sales focused mindset of the medical industry.

Since I receive many questions on this topic, I’d like to briefly illustrate how these principles intersect with DMSO.

First, many diseases (particularly degenerative neurological ones) essentially follow this progression:
1. Something pathologic is present in the body.
2. It repeatedly injures the body (e.g., the nervous system).
3. Over time, tissue damage (or tissues being stuck in a shocked state) accumulates, and the function of the tissue is gradually compromised.
4. The tissue damage creates functional impairments the individual notices and wants addressed.

Typically, the earlier in that chain you can affect the process, the closer you get to treating the “root cause” of the illness (whereas if you only treat stage 4, which is what many pharmaceutical drugs do—in part due to their design and in part because stage 4 shifts are the easiest to quantify with conventional research), all you accomplish is reducing symptoms and needing to take the drug in perpetuity. Conversely, while treating stage 1 is ideal, it isn’t always possible to do, and in many cases, even if you do, the existing damage is still there.

Since DMSO essentially does a lot of different things many other therapies I routinely use do, but much less potently, it frequently addresses multiple of the above stages without being strong enough to cause a significant reaction, which is essentially why DMSO can frequently fix a wide range of complex illnesses without requiring as much precise targeting by a skilled clinician. Conversely, its ability to do each one varies, with it typically being the least effective at addressing stage 1.

Because of this, for example, we long believed that DMSO could not cure ALS, but as it seemed to help counteract stage 2, it could prevent the progression of the disease, making it a far from ideal option for the disease (but nonetheless still a dramatic improvement over what they could otherwise expect and thus justifiable). I hence was quite surprised to receive reports like this where the reader reported DMSO reversed their ALS (allowing them to regain strength and mobility that had been gone for years) and concluded that the symptoms returning once he stopped DMSO indicated it was addressing stages 2, 3, and 4 for him (discussed further here)

Likewise, when someone else reached out to share their gratitude for me publishing the DMSO series because high oral doses was what finally gave him the ability to walk (due to severe arthritis in one joint on each side), my response was: “if you’ve taken that much DMSO for a year and it has not permanently fixed the issue, you need to look into the root cause, and given what’s going on, I would do either this or this.”
Note: in his case, while I disagreed with perpetually treating the issue with DMSO, it’s also important to acknowledge the only option most people in those circumstances would have is to perpetually take an NSAID, which would be both significantly less effective and expose them to a real risk of a serious complication (prior to the COVID vaccines, NSAIDs were the arguably deadliest pharmaceutical drug in America due to all the gastric bleeds and kidney injuries they cause). So while I would prefer a different approach, compared to the standard options, DMSO management was a miracle.

I mention all of this because one of the most common questions I receive from readers is if they can take DMSO perpetually because of how good it is for you. My answer, in turn, has always been:

“If you can’t trace a clear benefit to taking it (or are at high risk of a condition it prevents), I would not take it perpetually. This is partly because I am philosophically opposed to that approach to medicine, partly because one segment of the DMSO community believes longterm use stresses the liver as the liver detoxifies it (although to the best of my knowledge no data corroborates this—while in contrast liver failure has been cured with DMSO), and partly because in chronic pain, if break days aren’t periodically used, it can lose its effectiveness. That said, there are people who’ve taken it daily for 30 years and reported no issues from doing so, but ultimately the data to solidly answer if this is helpful or harmful will likely never be collected.”

Institutional Inertia

Most societies and institutions follow a similar trajectory: initially, they are the underdogs and have to be as innovative, flexible, and dedicated as possible to establish themselves. However, once they do, their focus shifts to maintaining their newfound position rather than advancing their original mission, and in many cases, this eventually leads to decadence, decay, and collapse (e.g., empires throughout history typically last seven generations because they all succumb to this cycle—a process which is initiated by members of the newly prosperous society collectively shifting their focus from advancing the national interest to finding ways to make as much money as possible for themselves and then once the wealth is accumulated, everyone aimlessly drifting into intellectualism, then decadence and then a societal collapse).

Likewise, whenever an industry or organization becomes assigned to addressing an issue, while bold strides are initially taken, the focus gradually shifts to protecting the institution and maintaining the status quo. For example I’ve never forgotten one clip from a documentary about soldiers who were injured by the (completely unnecessary) experimental anthrax vaccine, which much like the COVID vaccine, ended the careers of many promising soldiers despite widespread resistance against the shots.

Often times you find that people will protect the institution rather than disclose the truth. And as long as the institution stays intact, they’re protected.

Note: a documentary was recently made by CHD exposing the similar (illegal) travesty that happened to our military with the COVID-19 vaccines. I was requested to help promote it so enough people can attend the initial screening for it to make the impact they are hoping for. If this is an issue that is important to you, a trailer for the film and information on purchasing tickets can be found here.

This shift in focus commonly translates to the goal moving from solving the issue to providing an “indispensable service” by perpetually managing rather than fixing it (much in the same way many patients are perpetually treated with medications that cause increasingly severe side effects as they age).

As this process has occurred throughout history, it typically is attributed to financial incentives. For example, despite countless attempts over the decades, government contractors are notorious for overcharging and underdelivering on projects they’re paid to do, with California’s high speed rail being one of the most well known examples (which after more than 30 years of work and 15 billion spent, has only assembled 59 train bridges, not laid any track, and now is estimated will cost 4-7x what was promised when the funding was secured by a 2008 ballot initiative).

Because of this, many believe that spending more money on things (which desperately need help) can actually be counterproductive, as it incentivizes the responsible party to switch their focus to securing funding and planning spending rather than garnering results. Sadly, beyond government spending, this principle encapsulates why it is so difficult to find authentic charities to donate to (both within medicine and outside of it). Likewise, it illustrates why monopolies are so problematic in medicine, as it is only with real competition that the medical system will be motivated to find treatments which actually help their patients.

Note: government contracts pay for results upfront so that money can be saved all around by contractors not needing to secure more costly bank financing. I’ve long believed that if this model were switched (contractors were only paid upon successful completion of the contract), while there might be a small increase in overall costs and exclusion of some smaller contractors, this would be counterbalanced by far greater savings from contracts actually being completed for the original price promised. While nothing this extreme has been done, this week, the military announced unprecedented changes to how defense contracts will be procured^1,2 which essentially implements parts of that (along with providing the peripheral support it needs to work), something I am hopeful might for the first time in my life curb America’s immense military spending.

Conclusion

While financial incentives are the most obvious driver for institutions to abandon their original mission, from having repeatedly observed how this plays out inside institutions, I (and many others throughout history) have come to believe that plain human complacency and the widespread aversion to change play an equally central (and perhaps even larger) role. Most people would simply rather master a comfortable routine and get paid for it than face the constant uncertainty required to actually solve difficult problems, and once an organization passes its trying founding phase, its culture naturally selects for those people over genuine problem-solvers who disrupt its order.

What then is the antidote to all of this?

When I was much younger, mirroring what I read in spiritual texts, I saw many instances of people who were or became wealthy being far less happy than their less fortunate peers and realized that money without purpose was not only devoid of meaning, but often spiritual poison as one’s life purpose inevitably would warp to revolve around accumulating ever increasing amounts of money or status (along with all the effort it took to maintain) because they believed the happiness and contentment they could never find could be obtained with even more wealth.

Repeatedly observing this dynamic, I concluded that my purpose would be to learn as much about life as I could, and along that journey, find ways to help others, as while I was not born into a prosperous family, knowing what life was like in many places outside America, I felt immensely fortunate for where I had nonetheless ended up and that I had a spiritual obligation to pay that forward.

Because of this mindset, I would always seek out new and challenging problems to solve, and before long gravitated towards medicine because very few things are as complex as the human body (or as meaningful for others when you can finally figure something out and help heal someone). I was hence quite shocked to discover not only that inquisitive medical students were the minority, but more so, that the entire educational process was structured to gradually remove that mindset from trainees, and just how many of the doctors I trained under both had extremely repetitive practices (which to me would be unbearable) and were less than happy about their life, yet unwilling to consider different ways to manage their patients even when it was clear their approach did not work and a (not too controversial) alternative was offered to them.

I’ve hence long wondered what the solution is to all of this. On one hand, I hold the idealistic perspective that if people are presented with a better way to practice medicine, supported in enacting it, and shown that they can find the passion for medicine they had long ago lost, they would eagerly embrace it (as I’ve seen more physicians than I count in those circumstances do so). Conversely, from watching attempt after attempt to reform the medical system at many different scales fail (and seeing how effectively any entrenched industry will resist change unless a disruptive force emerges and rapidly eliminates the entire sector), I’ve adopted the more cynical perspective that medicine will only change if it faces genuine disruptive competition.

RFK’s approach on mental health hence offers an intriguing third (hybrid) option; provide physicians with a safe, supportive and guided framework to break from the existing mold and practice, while simultaneously rekindling their interest in medicine by seeing the results this previously unconventional approach creates.

It’s hard to describe how much joy this brings me, not only because it offers a better path forward for medicine in general, but also because so many people I was close to have had their lives ruined by SSRIs, and (even at the time I wrote the original mass shooting article), it always felt like there was so much inertia behind the drugs that it would be impossible to ever shift that. I hence want to deeply thank each of you for what you’ve done to create the current unprecedented climate we are in and for your help in supporting this newsletter that has allowed a lot of deeply meaningful things I never thought could happen to happen.

Lastly, I’ve been hard at work over the last two weeks on the second part of the neurology series (spinal injuries, peripheral nerve issues, and how many of DMSO’s therapeutic effects are mediated by the shifts it creates within the liquid crystalline water throughout the body—something you can to some extent see if you look carefully as DMSO mixes with water). I’m presently starting the first draft of the final section (neuropathic pain), so in theory it should be done by Saturday and going forward, most of the remaining ones should be easier to write as the densest topics and mechanisms will now have been covered.

To learn how other readers have benefitted from this publication and the community it has created, their feedback can be viewed here. Additionally, an index of all the articles published in the Forgotten Side of Medicine can be viewed here.

•Selling addictive drugs is a highly reliable business model, and over the years, a variety of questionable drugs have been pushed upon us that target the inhibitory system of the brain alcohol also acts upon.

•The current preferred product, benzodiazepines (benzos), have a significant number of issues (particularly in the elderly), such as causing cognitive impairment, lightheadedness, poor coordination and fatigue (which collectively increase the risk of car accidents or falls), harming fetuses, and worsening the symptoms they treat (e.g., insomnia, anxiety, muscle spasms). Worst of all, they can cause respiratory depression and thus lethal overdoses (especially when combined with opioids).

•One of the most insidious issues with benzodiazepines is that they quickly create a physiologic dependence, and as a result, benzodiazepine dependence has been a widespread problem for decades.

•Unfortunately, while many of the issues with benzodiazepines (which in certain cases are very helpful) could be avoided with appropriate prescribing, the 15 minute visits created by insurance-run medicine makes physicians rarely have the time needed to appropriately prescribe them. As a result many who should not be on benzodiazepines are, and sadly, often are for decades.

•Many different types of anxiety exist (with different root causes and treatments). Unfortunately, medicine frequently erroneously views anxiety as a single disease entity, and as such, often treats it in a manner that is not actually indicated for their type of anxiety.

•This article will discuss the different types of anxiety, their root causes (much of which result from the unhealthy lifestyle modern living puts us in), the most effective natural (or conventional) treatments we have found for anxiety, and the most effective strategies for navigating the challenging process of withdrawing from benzodiazepines.

Jordan Peterson, a well-known commentator, disappeared from public view last year. To address rampant speculation over what had happened, his daughter recently gave a public statement on it where she revealed he was experiencing a devastating relapse from a previous benzodiazepine injury which was triggered by stress and mold toxicity. Her video went viral, getting ten million views and providing a unique view into the never-ending nightmare sensitive individuals injured by psychiatric medications go through—particularly since people who have not experienced this (or known people going through it) understandably have a great deal of difficulty believing something like this could even be possible.

Note: many of the issues she discussed occur more frequently with SSRI antidepressants than benzodiazepines (and are discussed in detail in here).

.The Disease of The Modern Age

Many consider anxiety to be the disease of the modern age. It is thus one of the most significant disease markets in America (e.g., from 2001-2004, approximately 19.1% of American adults had an anxiety disorder. In 2007, 36.8 billion was spent on medical care for anxiety and mood disorders). Yet despite spending billions on anxiety, rather than be appropriately addressed it has only increased (reflecting a common outcome forindustries that depend upon the perpetuation of the problem they “solve”)

Note: a recent survey found slightly over half of young adults (18-26) now suffer from anxiety, 43% have panic attacks, a third take anxiety medications, 54% found they became worse in 2023, and 26% of them were diagnosed with a new mental health condition due to COVID-19.

All of this suggests we may not be utilizing the best approach to deal with anxiety—particularly since the drugs used to treat it are some of the most problematic ones on the market.

The GABA System

Human physiology relies upon competing systems present at many different scales, which collectively hold the body in a state of equilibrium. Most pharmaceutical drugs, in turn, alter some of those regulating systems (typically by activating or inhibiting an enzyme or receptor) so the body can be shifted to a baseline deemed necessary for health. On one hand, this is an effective approach as it allows small doses of a therapeutic to rapidly exert change throughout the body. However, it frequently leads to a significant number of problems as:

•Drugs will often affect other systems besides their target (due to the significant similarity between many proteins in the body).

•Each of those regulatory systems often interacts with a wide range of things in the body, so if you stimulate or inhibit one, it can create a variety of unintended consequences.

•One of the ways the body regulates itself is by reducing overactive receptors and increasing under-active ones. Because of this, if a drug targets a specific receptor, a tolerance to it will often develop (as the receptor becomes harder to activate), which can require more of the drug to be administered as time progresses or withdrawals to trigger when it stops.

This final point is particularly consequential for drugs that affect the nervous system, as they rely upon a variety of stimulating and inhibiting processes, so artificially triggering either of those can subsequently cause withdrawals and hence create addictions.

Note: hooking people on neurologically addictive drugs has long been one of the most reliable business models, and in addition to being done by criminals, at many times was done by the state (e.g., consider England’s opium wars against China) or pharmaceutical companies (e.g., with heroin, cocaine, morphine, and methamphetamine in the early 1900s or more recently with synthetic opioids). When you review these cases, the drug dealer will frequently insist their product is safe and not addictive but typically will eventually be forced to stop selling it once too much social harm is created by their business model (e.g., the current opioid crisis).

Human neurology works by having nerve cells (neurons) connected to each other in a complex lattice that are continually giving signals to other neurons either to fire or not fire, with each neuron being calibrated to fire once it receives a sufficient stimulatory input. This is a beautiful system that makes much of life possible, but when it goes awry, a significant number of debilitating medical disorders emerge.

Within the brain, the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter is Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA), which works by changing the flow of chloride ions in and out of neurons. In turn, a large number of psychoactive drugs (particularly calming or sedating drugs) target the GABA system. Many of these (e.g., alcohol, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines), rather than directly activating GABA receptors, function by enhancing the effect GABA within the brain will have on GABA receptors. As you might expect, like alcohol, GABA drugs can often be highly addictive.

Note: unlike drugs that target the GABA system, supplements that simply contain GABA are not considered to promote a physical dependence on them. That said, I have seen a few very sensitive patients develop the withdrawals seen with GABA drugs after using liposomal GABA (a more potent preparation of GABA).

The History of Benzodiazepines

The first barbiturate used for medical purposes, barbital, was discovered in 1903, and once recognized to be an effective sedative, was quickly marketed (as Veronal). Following Veronal's success, various modifications were explored, and in 1912, phenobarbital was discovered and marketed to the world (as Luminal) and rapidly adopted by the medical system (after which many other barbiturates were brought to market).

The popularity of barbiturates arose from the fact they could treat anxiety, insomnia, epilepsy, and mania and sedate patients for anesthesia—all of which were extremely useful in medical practice, especially since the available pharmacologic treatments were much more limited at the time.

Note: barbiturates were also sometimes used to treat tremors, reduce pain, and for narcoanalysis (a form of hypnotic psychotherapy).

Because of this, barbiturates became very popular (e.g., this chart shows how much were produced just in the United States).

Unfortunately, from the start, it was clear the drugs had significant issues such as being highly addictive, impairing cognition or respiration, and repeatedly causing fatal overdoses (e.g., of Marilyn Monroe—arguably the most famous actress in history), so increasing concerns developed over its long-term use to manage permanent conditions like anxiety.

Within a year of the first barbiturate hitting the market, reports emerged in the medical literature of the addictive nature of barbiturates (e.g., “the Veronal habit”), but it was not until half a century later in the 1950s, that reliable evidence emerged that they were addictive. Proposals were made to have them be available by prescription only, and it took until the 1970s for laws to be introduced to treat them as a controlled substance with restricted prescribing rules. For context, in 1962, Kennedy’s commission estimated that as many as 250,000 Americans were addicted to barbiturates, while in England in 1965 it was estimated that there were 135,000 barbiturate addicts.

Note: in more recent times, other serious side effects with phenobarbital have been recognized, such as severe withdrawals when discontinued abruptly or liver damage and increased risk of certain cancers with long-term use.

When significant concerns exist about a lucrative technology, I typically find they are ignored until a viable replacement can be found. For instance, recently I discussed how the Obstetrics field routinely gave X-rays to pregnant women despite 50 years of warnings it endangered the fetus and only acknowledged those dangers once a viable alternative (prenatal ultrasounds—something which also has safety issues) became available.

In the case of barbiturates, recognizing the immense profitability of sedative medications, many attempted to produce other viable products. As it happened, one researcher at Roche was particularly drawn to this, and spent years searching for viable alternatives even after being ordered to stop and devote his time elsewhere. Eventually, in 1956, he discovered the first benzodiazepine, and Roche quickly recognized it (Librium) would be a blockbuster (which led to Roche funding one of the largest clinical trials in history for it).

Out of the 20,000 patients Roche tested, 1,163 patients (those who did not show signs of addiction or tolerance) were then selected to be presented to the FDA. As you might expect, these dramatic results quickly won a 1960 FDA approval, and before long, the more dangerous barbiturates (which were easier to accidentally overdose on) were displaced.

Roche, in turn, claimed Librium was an effective treatment for all types of anxiety and that it could be used as a muscle relaxant, for seizures, sedation, depression, and alcohol withdrawals. As it happened in 1960, Max Hamilton developed a scale to measure depression (and another to measure anxiety), which to this day are frequently used to evaluate those disorders. Since that scale transformed anxiety into an “objective” disorder with a scientific basis, Roche immediately recognized its value and distributed it to tens of thousands of doctors so they could diagnose and then “treat” anxiety.

Likewise, Roche hired Arthur Sackler to launch an expensive campaign to promote Librium which included:

•Convincing newspapers around the country to publish friendly stories highlighting the most remarkable trial results for Librium and suggesting it was a breakthrough drug that would transform medicine (thereby bypassing existing advertising regulations).

•Placing magazines with those stories in doctor's offices nationwide (again bypassing advertising regulations).

•Aggressively targeting women’s magazines (as Sackler suspected women would be a larger market).

•Aggressively targeting doctors to both convince them Librium (unlike barbiturates) was “safe” and that anxiety (an almost unlimited market) needed to be treated.

•Specifically targeting general practitioners (as they were unlikely to recognize the dangers of Librium) rather than psychiatrists (who already had significant familiarity with the sedative medications and served a much smaller patient population).

In turn, this deceptive campaign (and the subsequent 1963 one for Valium) were remarkably successful.

Physicians wrote 1.5 million Librium prescriptions in its first month of sales. It was dispensed for alleviating anxieties and phobias, as well as illnesses then thought to have a link to stress, including high blood pressure, ulcers, acne, muscle pain, and headaches. It was not public knowledge then, but even John Kennedy—wracked by lower back pain from his wartime injury—took Librium.

In the mid-to-late 1970s, benzodiazepines topped all "most frequently prescribed" lists. By the 1980s, clinicians' earlier enthusiasm and propensity to prescribe created a new concern: the specter of abuse and dependence. As information about benzodiazepines, both raising and damning, accumulated, medical leaders and legislators began to take action. The result: individual benzodiazepines and the entire class began to appear on guidelines and in legislation giving guidance on their use.

It hence should not surprise you that in the same way Librium was marketed as being “non-addictive,” Sackler’s descendants did the same with the synthetic opioids.

Note: in medicine there is always a push to destigmatize conditions to support patients with them. I generally support this, but in many cases find the linguistic changes enacted to do this obscure the underlying clinical reality and make people no longer able to understand the actual issue at play. In the case of psychiatric medicines, they can create powerful physical dependence (to the point you simply can’t stop them after a brief course), but since “addiction” and being an “addict” has a negative connotation with a illict drug user who engages in a variety of self-destructive behaviors (typically not seen in psyche meds users), there has been a widespread push to replace “addictive” with the more neutral term “creates chemical dependence.” My own view is that something can be addictive without creating addict behavior, but since people frequently equate one with the other, I wanted to be explicit in that distinction and note that the chemical dependence users of these addictive drugs find themselves in differs from our classic sense of what addiction entails (in part because psychiatric medications rapidly rewire your brain).

Appraising Benzodiazepines

Since it’s impossible to know all there is to a subject, we frequently are forced to make decisions based upon our pre-existing biases. Simultaneously however, it is virtually guaranteed that if you take a hardline position on any issue, you will inevitably make significant errors.

For instance, I hold a strong bias against pharmaceuticals, particularly psychiatric medications such as the SSRI antidepressants, as I routinely encounter them creating significant side effects and failing to benefit patients. Likewise, for most conditions, I know of non-pharmaceutical alternatives that are just as effective (if not more so) and do not have the same risks as pharmaceuticals. However, while I hold strong biases on this topic (especially since so many people I’m close to have been severely injured by pharmaceuticals) and rarely prescribe, I still will extensively consider the merits of pharmaceutical drugs as:

•With many drugs, while they typically are more likely to harm than help each patient, there is a subset of patients who benefit from them with minimal risk.
•In many cases (especially for less affluent patients), there are the only accessible therapy available for a condition.
•In many cases, a quick fix (e.g., a 10 minute visit and prescription) is the only thing both the doctor and patient have time for.
•Some drugs, while not ideal, have a good enough risk to benefit ratio.
•A subset of pharmaceutical drugs are extraordinarily effective for specific conditions; to my knowledge, nothing comparable to them exists in any other medical system. Likewise, some patients do very well on pharmaceutical drugs and can obtain a risk-reward ratio vastly larger than

Note: about 10 years ago, I spent months going through Wikipedia’s lengthy (but incomplete) list of every drug in existence, ranked them by their value, and identified 31 I felt were the “gems of pharmacology,” (and likely more had I known more about some of the ones I came across).

All of that essentially synopsizes my attitude toward benzodiazepines as:

•In the majority of cases, I believe they cause significantly more harm than benefit.

•If they are used appropriately in the correct patients (which requires a knowledge base most prescribers do not have), their benefits outweigh their risks.

•In many cases, patients need a rapid solution for the problem they are facing (e.g., crippling anxiety) and cannot afford to go through a lengthy and holistic way to mitigate the disorder. Likewise, many doctors simply cannot provide those approaches in a 10-15 minute office visit. As such, benzodiazepines are often the only available option.

Fortunately, while benzodiazepines are still massively overprescribed, there is now an awareness of their dangers, in part because they are going off-patent (so there is no longer a strong incentive to defend them) and in part because leading voices in the alternative media are bringing awareness to it.

Risks and Benefits of Benzodiazepines

Like many of other drugs discussed thus far, benzodiazepines are typically used to:

•Treat anxiety.
•Treat insomnia.
•Relax muscles.
•Treat seizures.
•Treat mania.
•Mitigate alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
•Sedate patients.
•Reduce agitation, paranoia, and aggression (e.g., in acutely psychotic patients or those having a bad drug trip).

Note: many of the withdrawal symptoms of benzodiazepines are each of the above conditions (e.g., anxiety).

Benzodiazepines in turn, have three significant issues:

1. First, while specific benzodiazepines are sometimes appropriate treatments for some of the above conditions (e.g., specific types of anxiety, certain muscle spasms, seizures, anesthesia, alcohol withdrawals, and certain psychotic patients), they frequently will make the condition worse (e.g., anxiety) rather than better.

This is particularly important with insomnia, as benzodiazepines (and the related z-drugs like Ambien) do not put you to sleep—rather they are sedatives that sedate (shut down) restorative sleep. As such, patients who cannot sleep frequently take benzodiazepines but then suffer all the complications that are seen with chronic sleep deprivation. In fact, studies have found sleeping pill users are two to five times as likely to die as non-users, and one estimate concluded that in 2010, prescription sleeping pills “may have been associated with 320,000-507,000 excess deaths within the USA alone.”

Note: I only know of one available sleeping pill that does not block restorative sleep (along with a far more effective natural supplement the FDA waged an unconscionable war against to keep off the market). That said, when individuals have been awake for a prolonged period (e.g., due to amphetamines), benzodiazepines can often cause them to fall into a deep sleep which can be nearly a day long (far exceeding the duration of the benzodiazepine) and be fully recovered when they wake up.

2. Second, they frequently create a variety of severe side effects such as:

•Sedation, drowsiness, muscle weakness, fatigue, and loss of motor coordination (e.g., a large study found long-acting benzodiazepines increase the risk of car accidents by 45%, while another meta-analysis found a far larger increase, and a third study determined benzodiazepines in the first three years of use created impairment greater than what alcohol sufficient to cause a DUI would cause).
Note: commercial drivers are prohibited from taking benzodiazepines.

•Dizziness or Lightheadedness (e.g., a study of 2,510 nursing home residents found they increased the risk of falls by 44%).

•Confusion, disorientation, and impairment of cognitive functioning, processing speed, short term memory, or forming new memories (e.g., one study found that about 20.7% of long-term benzodiazepine users exhibited cognitive impairment across various domains, including processing speed, sustained attention, and episodic memory, meta-analyses have shown significant deficits in cognitive functions such as working memory, processing speed, and visuospatial abilities among long-term users, and a meta analysis (along with a case-control study) found long-term use increased the risk of dementia by 51%). Some of these effects are likely due to benzodiazepines blocking restorative sleep, so for this reason, we frequently strongly caution students who “need them to reduce studying anxiety” to avoid using benzodiazepines while studying (as it is highly counterproductive to learning)—in contrast, many highly effective approaches exist to enhance learning.

Note: many benzodiazepine users I’ve spoken to have shared that their perception of reality changes (in a way akin to going through life in a “flow state” as you feel great in the moment and your internal chatter silences), that time flashes by so fast” and that it is often quite difficult for them to remember what had happened while they were using these drugs (known as anterograde amnesia). For those interested in learning more, this article discusses the extensive memory impairments created by benzodiazepines (e.g., in 1972, it was known that regular diazepam doses reduced recognition memory in 90% of women).

•Respiratory depression, which can be lethal, especially when combined with other respiratory depressants.
Note: one benzodiazepine (midazolam) is frequently used for lethal injections and medically assisted dying, and during COVID-19, its use in association with morphine (another respiratory suppressant) was associated with a large number of nursing home deaths in England and Ireland.

•Causing many of the conditions they are supposed to treat (e.g., agitation and aggression), especially after the drugs are stopped. For example:

Additionally, many of these symptoms often last long after the benzodiazepine is discontinued.

•Causing visual disturbances such as double vision (e.g., one study found 63.3% of long-term benzodiazepine users reported symptoms such as blurred vision and difficulty reading).

3. Third, certain groups are particularly at risk of these complications but nonetheless frequently take these drugs. For instance, nearly 1.9% of pregnant women worldwide report using benzodiazepines despite risks of complications like early delivery, low birth weight, congenital malformations, floppy infant syndrome, and withdrawal symptoms (e.g., one study found a 41% increased risk of premature birth, another found a 69% increase in miscarriages, while another found a 145% increase in C-sections, a 241% increase in low birthweights, and a 185% increase in newborns requiring ventilatory support).

Likewise, the elderly are particularly vulnerable to cognitive impairment and falls benzodiazepines cause—particularly since they often have impaired metabolism of the drugs (to the point in 2012 the American Geriatrics Society recommended against giving them to older patients), yet benzodiazepine use steadily increases with age.

4. Finally, they have a high risk of overdosing—which is particularly problematic since they are also highly addictive, and sadly, in tandem with increasing benzodiazepine use, this cycle keeps on increasing. For example, from 2004 to 2011, emergency room visits involving benzodiazepine misuse rose by 149% (from 11.0 to 34.2 per 100,000 people) and in 2021, there were around 12,499 deaths involving benzodiazepine overdoses, up from 1,135 deaths in 1999 (a 917% increase over 22 years).

Benzodiazepine Dependence

As benzodiazepines gradually downregulate the GABA system, once they wear off, the symptoms the drugs addressed not only come back, but often in a manner more severe than they had been prior to initiating the benzodiazepines. Many of these symptoms mirror what is seen in alcohol withdrawals and illustrate why benzodiazepines are so challenging to quit.

• Common Symptoms: Anxiety, Insomnia, Irritability, Tremors, Muscle Stiffness and Pain, Sweating, Nausea and Vomiting, Headaches, Panic Attacks, Dizziness, Heart Palpitations

• Psychological Symptoms: Confusion, Memory Problems, Depression, Hallucinations, Delusions, Paranoia

• Sensory Symptoms: Tinnitus, Burning Sensations, Derealization/Depersonalization

• Physical Symptoms: Seizures, Muscle Twitches, Loss of Appetite and Weight Loss, Diarrhea

• Other Symptoms: Dry Mouth and Metallic Taste, Difficulty Swallowing, Flushing and Skin Rashes

Note: typically anxiety, insomnia, irritability, and muscle stiffness are the earliest symptoms to occur (e.g., after 1-4 days), while at weeks 1-2, the most severe symptoms occur. Unfortunately, for 10-15% of users, post-acute withdrawal symptoms (PAWS) such as anxiety, insomnia, depression, cognitive impairment, and mood swings can last for several months to years (typically around 1-2 years but in some cases 5-10 years).

Tragically, existing estimates find roughly half of benzodiazepine users experience withdrawal symptoms when they either stop the drug or simply decrease the dose, while 20-30% experience rebound symptoms (where the symptom is worse than it was prior to the benzodiazepine) and around 10% experience withdrawals that are “quite distressing (e.g., they are 40% more likely to become suicidal). Sometimes withdrawals can be quite severe (e.g., seizures occurring—which without treatment have the potential to be fatal), and when tracked, those who discontinued tended to be 60% more likely to die in the next year (amounting to 2.1-2.4% of them dying who otherwise would not have).

Note: many benzodiazepine users obtain benzodiazepines off the black market (e.g., an extensive survey determined 5.3 million Americans “misuse” benzodiazepine either by using a dose differing from what was prescribed [26.1%] or simply by obtaining it illegally [73.9%]). As such, there is a large pool of people who are at a much greater risk for these withdrawals (e.g., since they can’t ensure a constant supply) who may then either experience significant medical complications from them or turn to an addict lifestyle so they can somehow obtain their next dose to prevent the inevitable withdrawals. Typically, young adults misuse benzodiazepines (either recreationally or to self-medicate), whereas older adults tend to be harmed by these drugs because they are on long-term benzodiazepine prescriptions.

Remarkably, all of this has been well-known for decades. Consider for instance, this 1979 Senate hearing covered by the New York Times, where Senator Kennedy highlighted that Valium and Librium had produced “a nightmare of dependence” for many people.

“Classically today, if a woman walks into her doctor's office and says, ‘I'm nervous, my husband drinks too much,’ the doctor will automatically give her a tranquilizer,” said the Navy psychiatrist, whose patients have included Billy Carter, the President's brother; Betty Ford, wife of the former President, and Senator Herman E. Talmadge, Democrat of Georgia.

More than 44.6 million Valium prescriptions were filled last year. Many doctors who write such prescriptions do not realize the dangers of their patients becoming addicted to Valium, Librium, and other mild tranquilizers, Dr. Pursch said.

Asked by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the subcommittee chairman, whether Valium alone was a problem in American society, Dr. Pursch replied that he had seen people become addicted to the tranquilizer in only six weeks.

“None of these drugs solve our problems,” Dr. Pursch said. “They make people feel better because they make you feel dull and insensitive. But they don't solve anything.”

However, Robert B. Clark, president of Hoffmann‐La Roche Inc., the manufacturer of Valium, maintained that it was a safe and effective drug when properly used. He said that addiction was “extremely rare” at recommended dosage levels, and that Valium did not appear to be more addictive than any other mild tranquilizer.

Mr. Clark said that the vast majority of patients on Valium used it for only a short time, followed their doctors’ instructions, and had no problem with the drug. But he [in 1979] said his company would begin a program to make certain that information on the risks and benefits of Valium was included in each container for the patient to read.

Despite this, the use of benzodiazepines has continued to increase (e.g., in 1996 4.1% of adults had a benzodiazepine prescription, whereas in 2018, 12.6% reported benzodiazepine use in the past year). In tandem, ER admissions, hospitalizations, and lethal overdoses for these drugs have continually increased, particularly when given concurrently with opioids (as both cause respiratory depression and hence increase the odds of fatal respiratory arrest).

Note: other sedating drugs that decrease respiration can also be problematic with benzodiazepines (e.g., antihistamines like Benadryl), so it is essential to be mindful of what other drugs are taken concurrently.

In turn, many high-profile benzodiazepine deaths have happened (e.g., Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Tom Petty, Prince).

Note: women are almost twice as likely as men to be prescribed benzodiazepines.

Insufficient Treatment Time

One of the greatest problems in psychiatric care is that typically (unless there is a clear organic cause of the illness such as an undiagnosed chronic infection like Lyme or a micronutrient deficiency), the most therapeutic thing a psychiatrist can do is to be fully present to their patient (e.g., viewing the interaction as a sacred event) and spending a prolonged period of time with them—to the point that psychiatrists who make the “wrong” medical choices for their patients but spend time with them often get better outcomes than psychiatrists with rushed visits who don’t make those errors.

Unfortunately, despite extensive visits characterizing the best psychiatrists in practice (good results normally require visits roughly an hour due to the patient’s mind needing time to expand shift and morph at its own pace during the visit, although visits can be a bit shorter on repeat visits if not that much is being done), it’s very rare this actually happens. That’s because psychiatrists (and general practitioners—who frequently treat psychiatric cases) are typically allotted 15 minute visits by the insurance-based healthcare system where a significant portion of their mental space during a visit has to be focused on something besides being fully present to the patient. Likewise, my colleagues who spent more than 15 minutes with patients (because they feel it is important) frequently get significant administrative pushback both for keeping the clinic open late and having much lower patient volumes (as they simply cannot see as many people at a time).

Note: much of medicine revolves around finding ways to use external technology, support staff, (and likely AI in the near future) to outsource many of a doctor’s tasks. This does not work in psychiatry (unless the practice revolves solely around prescribing medications) as many of its diagnoses can only emerge from direct interaction with the patient and the psychiatrist’s presence is the key therapeutic ingredient, so psychiatry is effectively stuck in the position of the medical industry trying to scale it, but it simply not scaling well (as once that is attempted, much of what actually works in it becomes lost).

In turn, a good case can be made that many of the issues which emerge with psychiatric medications result from this limited therapeutic interaction. For example:
•Unless a patient gets to know their physician well, they are unlikely to report important side effects like SSRI sexual dysfunction (which affects the majority of SSRI users) which indicates the dose of the medication is not appropriate.
•Medications will be used in lieu of the more time consuming therapies a patient needs.
•Medications will frequently be incorrectly prescribed and the patient will not be given comprehensive warnings about the risks of medication and what to look out for (as there simply isn’t time to do it).

Unfortunately, the only real solution to this, seeing a cash-pay psychiatrist (not covered by insurance) who ideally has an integrative background, is not affordable for most patients, as depending on who you see and the area you live in, this normally costs between 250-500 an hour (which I would argue is a good investment given how costly poorly prescribed psychiatric medications can become), particularly since those psychiatrists normally have to spend a significant amount of time outside of the visit preparing for the patient.
Note: a few of my colleagues treat VIP psychiatry patients. What I’ve found remarkable from talking to these people is that while I often have some objections to the politics of the celebrity class, on an individual basis (and in private with their psychiatrist), those VIPs are often fairly nice people who suffer from all the same emotional issues and stressors regular members of society experience (along with having to regularly deal with the paparazzi—which is frequently immensely stressful).

Inappropriate Benzodiazepine Prescribing

In reviewing more benzodiazepine addiction cases than I can count, a few issues commonly recur—many of which I feel ultimately result from prescribing doctors simply having too little time with their patients.

First, benzodiazepines (and SSRIs) tend to work much better for anxious patients who have first received psychotherapy (typically cognitive behavioral therapy—which as this systematic review shows is a highly effective treatment for anxiety).

Unfortunately, since therapy is resource intensive, this often is not done. In an ideal world, all patients with anxiety would first receive psychotherapy appropriate for their type of anxiety, then if that does not get them well, start them on an appropriate medication (which provided psychotherapy has already been done for, they are likely to have a far more rapid response to that if the medication is given without prior psychotherapy), and then gradually reduce the medication to the minimal dose the patient needs (or completely withdraw it).

Second, patients are not warned by their doctors as to how addictive the benzodiazepines can be (and had they known many said they would have never started them).

Third, many do not know that using benzodiazepines for as little as 3-6 weeks can create a physical dependence that can give way to a permanent inability to stop them.

Fourth, many do not know or appreciate how difficult it is to wean off benzodiazepines, as the process often takes years of daily methodical work (and if the process is done even a little bit too quickly, it can create a backlash which makes it much harder to quit them).

Fifth, many do not appreciate that certain benzodiazepines have a much higher risk of addiction, particularly those with a short half-life.

The short acting benzodiazepines tend to have the greatest risk for addiction, particularly Xanax due to the fact it concurrently creates a euphoria when it is taken (and a depression once it wears off).

Note: individuals commonly mistake the euphoric effect of a drug with its therapeutic effect. As such, when taking psychiatric medications, the goal of a patient should be to “feel fine” not to “feel good.”

Unfortunately, the issues with Xanax are still not sufficiently recognized by the medical field and it remains one of the most commonly prescribed benzodiazepines.

For context, Xanax used a similar playbook to Librium, with its developer (Upjohn which was later acquired by Pfizer) popularizing “panic disorders” (to the point they came to be known as the Upjohn illness) marketing Xanax as the treatment for this “epidemic” sweeping the nation, and before long creating a blockbuster drug that was one of the most prescribed medications in psychiatry.

Note: the other benzodiazepine that frequently creates issues is Valium as its metabolite is also physiologically active, so over time, it will build up inside the body (which while typically problematic, can be quite helpful in epilepsy since there it can constantly prevent future seizures).

Sixth, because benzodiazepines frequently build up tolerances, prescribers often use much higher doses than are appropriate and then increase them as the patient develops a tolerance to them. Conversely, the people I know who have the best results with benzodiazepines use very low doses (e.g., they start with one-half or one-quarter of the recommended dose, monitor the patient’s response to it, and only raise it a bit if needed).

Finally, because patients can be so sensitive to benzodiazepine withdrawals, small changes in the doses can often create significant problems. This frequently arises when generic formulations of the drugs are made (as significant quality control issues exist with many generics produced overseas, and the pharmacologic action of generic benzodiazepines can be surprisingly inconsistent). As such, my colleagues periodically will have patients who were changed to a different brand of an existing prescription that developed significant complications as the two pills were not equivalent.

Note: a recent problematic example of this occurred when a generic version of Adderall (Zenzedi) was recalled on January 24, 2024 due to a mix-up where carbinoxamine maleate, an antihistamine, was found in the packaging instead of the intended medication. For those wishing to know more about the problems with generics, it is extensively detailed in this book and this article.

Somewhat similarly, I have heard a few stories of similar issues occurring with psychiatric patients on Ozempic, as Ozempic slows gastrointestinal transit and hence delays absorption of medications (which with certain psychiatric medications can then trigger withdrawals) and in patients with Crohn’s Disease (which also impairs gastrointestinal absorption.

In short, benzodiazepines can be very helpful if they are used for a type of anxiety that responds to their action, and they are appropriately used for a short period of time. Unfortunately, they instead tend to be given for a broad swathe of anxieties and then continued indefinitely, at which point their harms greatly outweigh any benefit they can provide. In many ways, benzodiazepines could be analogized to the “nuclear option” for anxiety. Still, providers are far too quick to use them rather than first attempting to consider the far safer options that are available.

Note: due to how prevalent benzodiazepine dependency is, a large industry has emerged to help detoxify individuals with it. In some cases, these centers (which can sometimes cost $1000.00 per day) can be helpful (e.g., if the addiction is strong enough that the individual lacks the control to stop on their own and does not have a robust support system in place to help them), but in other cases can often be quite harmful (e.g., we have seen bad outcomes with the rapid detoxification protocols some places offer). Generally speaking, I believe a slow home tapering program (done in collaboration with a supportive psychiatrist) is the best way to approach the problem.

Overlapping Syndromes

A major challenge in medical diagnosis is that the same disease can create different symptoms in different patients, while completely different diseases can present with fairly similar symptoms. Because of this, it is typically much easier (and profitable) to give therapies that are directed at the symptomatic expressions of each disease rather than taking the time to determine exactly what is causing the illness to trigger and giving the remedy that specifically addresses it.

As such, one of the most common reasons individuals seek out the (often costly) realm of non-insurance covered integrative medicine is due to the fact that the symptomatic management conventional care offers leads to unacceptable outcomes (e.g., many debilitating symptoms remaining, costly and harmful “treatments” needing to be done indefinitely, or the illness progressing).

In a previous article on the depression industry, I highlighted a major problem with the condition—rather than there being one type of depression, numerous different things can cause it. This is often quite consequential, as while some types of depression respond well to SSRI antidepressants, others do not, and some become significantly worse with antidepressant therapy. As such, I believe it is immensely inappropriate to quickly diagnose someone with depression and then prescribe an antidepressant—which unfortunately is what frequently happens, particularly in 10 minute primary care visits.

A similar issue exists with anxiety as:

•Different types of anxiety exist that respond differently to psychiatric medications.

•The underlying causes of anxiety are poorly understood.

Types of Anxiety

One of the things I have long been fascinated with in medicine is how many different models can be used to describe a disease process. In turn, there are a few different ways to look at anxiety, the first of which are the common psychiatric diagnoses used to classify it, which while accurate and useful, typically are not at the forefront of my mind when evaluating it. They are as follows:

•Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)—this is characterized by excessive, uncontrollable worry about a wide range of topics, often with physical symptoms like muscle tension or restlessness, and affects about 3.1% of the U.S. population, with a higher prevalence in women. GAD (and anxiety in general), within the conventional framework, responds to best cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Conversely, if GAD is treated with a benzodiazepine, while there can be an initial positive response, the disorder will often worsen and need progressively increasing benzodiazepine doses. As such, it is extremely important to avoid benzodiazepines here.

Note: GAD is often described as having anxiety that is grossly disproportional to the magnitude of the stressor which triggers it (e.g., being a “worrywart”) and in most cases, these individuals have an underlying stressor in their life they are not fully conscious of which is a root cause of their anxiety. Since patients often have poor insight into their underlying issue, therapies which can identify the stressor (e.g., CBT) are often very helpful for GAD.

•Panic disorders—in the last year, roughly 2-3% of Americans experienced sudden unexpected and recurrent panic attacks (e.g., heart palpitations, sweating, dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, and a fear of losing control or dying), frequently describing the process as though there is a “faulty trip wire in the brain” which sets off immense anxiety attacks that “just seem to come out of nowhere.” Psychotherapy is often very helpful here, as it can frequently identify what the actual trigger for someone’s panic attacks are (as they often are not consciously aware of it) and typically, panic disorders benefit from some combination of ERP and CBT therapy. ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) for context, is a therapy where an individual is exposed to a light version of the panic trigger (e.g., imagining it or a picture of it), instructed to relax, and then once they can, are gradually exposed to more intense exposures that more closely approximate the trigger (e.g., a hose if they have a fear of snakes) until the trigger can be tolerated.

Note: individuals with panic disorders will often self-medicate with alcohol or illicitly acquired benzodiazepines.

When used appropriately, benzodiazepines can be very helpful for panic disorders, particularly since panic attacks can cause a variety of Pavlovian associations, which can gradually cause a variety of other previously benign stimuli (that were also present at the time of the panic attack) to become panic triggers as well. Specifically, in many cases (like migraines), panic attacks will be preceded by a prodrome (e.g., the face getting hot, the nose getting itchy, or too much spit in the mouth). If panic attacks have prodromes, benzodiazepines are very useful as they can be taken during that period before the panic attack. In contrast, if prodromes do not occur, benzodiazepines have minimal value. Likewise, if the panic attacks are brief, benzodiazepines typically have minimal value, whereas if they persist for hours, benzodiazepines are helpful.

Note: if individuals instantaneously feel their panic attack go away following a benzodiazepine, they most likely are having a conditioned response to the drug once swallowed, as they normally take at least 30 minutes to onset.

•Specific phobias—roughly 7-9% of people at some point in their life will have an irrational fear of a specific object, situation, or activity, such as heights, spiders, or flying, and experience panic symptoms when exposed to it. Like panic disorders, this condition responds to appropriate benzodiazepine use (e.g., it is given prior to a planned and necessary exposure to the phobia that will last roughly as long as the expected duration of the exposure) and ERP therapy.

•Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)—individuals with social phobias (which 7-13% of people will experience at some point in their lives) have an intense fear of being judged or embarrassed in social situations, frequently experience blushing, sweating, or trembling in those situations and often avoid public places or interactions. This condition also responds to ERP therapy, and we find when medications are used, short low dose beta-blockers (rather than the habit forming benzodiazepines) are typically ideal to use.
Note: for patients with SAD, it is important to not have periods of prolonged isolation (as this makes you much more sensitive to social phobias). In turn, our patients with SAD often had significant difficulties after the COVID lockdowns ended.

•Agoraphobia—about 1-2% of people have a phobia of being in places or situations where escape could be difficult (e.g., a crowded place) if anxiety or panic symptoms were to emerge at the same time, they were there (essentially anxiety about anxiety). This also responds well to ERP therapy.

•Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder—OCD involves unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors or rituals (compulsions) performed to reduce the anxiety caused by the obsessions. This form of anxiety affects 1-2% of the population, and does not respond to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or benzodiazepines (at best they can reduce OCD induced panic but do not address the underlying anxiety), but does respond to ERP therapy.
Note: while I avoid SSRIs, my psychiatrist colleagues, who are relatively conservative with medications, will typically address this form of OCD with SSRIs.

•Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—PTSD is another frequent cause of anxiety and affects 3-6% of the population (and sometimes results in self-medication, particularly to prevent flashbacks).

•Adjustment disorder—when an individual has a large life-changing stressor (e.g., the loss of a job, a severe illness, or the death of a loved one) they can have a great deal of difficulty being able to function. In many cases, benzodiazepines are given to mitigate those symptoms (which frequently leads to significant issues as they transition to long-term benzodiazepine use). Generally, this responds best to CBT and supportive social work, but in patients who do not want CBT, some of my colleagues use low doses of SSRIs for 6-12 months.

•Stressful life syndrome—many individuals are stuck in challenging life situations (e.g., an unhealthy relationship, being close to poverty, having a job they hate) which provoke depression and anxiety (e.g., their boss molests them at work but they cannot afford to leave the job or legally fight the abuse). In these instances, psychiatric care is often sought to help the individual handle the understandable distress they feel from having to handle a bleak and challenging situation each day. In turn, we believe it’s critical to always emphasize the actual “treatment” is to leave the situation—but in practice, many patients either won’t or can’t (e.g., because we are in a challenging economy and a social safety net is often not there for those who need it). As such, when good social support services (e.g., good social workers) aren’t available (which often varies greatly by city and state) we often try to focus on giving patients the tools to find meaning in their lives instead.
Note: many physicians try to “treat” these situations with psychiatric medications (as they believe they have a duty to relieve suffering). In most cases, psychiatric medications cannot improve distress that has a legitimate external cause, and hence frequently “work poorly” because they are given for situations where they can do very little to begin with.

Finally, other rarer forms of anxiety, such as substance-induced anxiety disorder also exist (but are beyond the scope of this article).

Note: it can sometimes initially be difficult to determine what form of anxiety someone has either because they are concealing it or are in denial over the root cause of it or because they have multiple forms existing concurrently. As such, I believe it is important for patients to understand the types of anxiety so they can avoid being misdiagnosed and given the wrong treatment.

Causes of Anxiety

With some types of anxiety (e.g., PTSD anxiety), the cause is fairly straightforward. However, it is far more ambiguous with many others within the existing psychiatric framework.

Mental Causes of Anxiety

One of the most common processes that underlie anxiety (particularly GAD) is people’s minds wandering into the future, them coming up with a negative one (e.g., a future where things go awry). Then various things within the individual react to the negative future and catalyze the physiologic reactions to anxiety.

I believe this process is a result of:

•Our society teaching individuals the solution to the dilemmas we face is to overthink them (e.g., GAD individuals with high IQs tend to have a greater degree of worry) rather than encouraging the development of emotional intelligence (which I suspect is due to emotional intelligence increasing one’s immunity to marketing).

•Most of the marketing we are exposed to teaches us to focus on attaining or losing expectations in the future rather than being content with the present.

•Much of the mass media “hooks” its customers by bombarding them with shocking content and the fear of something abysmal happening in the future that they can never stop worrying about.

•Social media causing individuals to negatively compare themselves to the glamorized lives of others and upsetting context being juxtaposed with ads because individuals in a distressed state are more likely to click through on them.
Note: we noticed this was primarily an issue with Meta (e.g., Facebook, and then Instagram once Facebook bought it) as their algorithm prioritizes this approach. For this reason, we often advise anxious patients to avoiding the news and social media, and particularly, to avoid comparing themselves to people presenting a glamorized (and likely inaccurate) rendition of their life online.

•We live very disconnected (mental) lives that put us in our heads rather than into the reality around us.

•Being habituated to have a fear rather than acceptance of the unknown (and believing we can address that fear by overthinking the unknown). This point is particularly important as we find many cases of anxiety ultimately boil down to a fear of the unknown.

•The media has sold the message to America that we “should never feel bad” (both to sell psychiatric medications and because it makes us more susceptible to emotional marketing). Because of this, the default response individuals will have to an anxiety producing situation is to try to suppress the anxiety (e.g., with a pill or product). Many hence never develop the emotional coping mechanisms necessary to handle stressful situations (e.g., we know numerous chronic marijuana users who would smoke throughout childhood whenever they had an emotional obstacle and then completely lost the ability to deal with emotional adversity they encountered later in life).

At the same time however, if you simply tell people to “stop overthinking things” that normally doesn’t work, so the cognitive aspect of anxiety is only one part of the picture.

Note: to some extent, anxiety is contagious (e.g., you can periodically observe panic rapidly overtake a crowd,) so for this reason, if you are struggling with anxiety, it is often quite helpful to distance yourself from the anxious people in your life. Likewise, treating a parent’s anxiety (e.g., with CBT) has repeatedly been found to reduce anxiety in their children.

•Lastly, other co-existent issues (that are frequently missed during evaluation) such as speech disorders or trauma will also trigger chronic anxiety.

Physiologic Causes of Anxiety.

While a variety of issues within the body can give rise to anxiety, a few common ones repeatedly emerge.

•Human physiology relies upon a balance between the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system and the parasympathetic (rest and relax) branches of the autonomic nervous system. When these become imbalanced (too much sympathetic activity or too little parasympathetic activity), individuals become prone to anxiety (e.g., panic disorders). In turn, I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve met who had rapid and dramatic improvements in their anxiety once the dysfunctional half of their autonomic nervous system was addressed (e.g., panic disorders are often characterized by excessive sympathetic activity). I feel it is immensely unfortunate causes of autonomic dysfunction are so commonly ignored.
Note: some of the common treatments for anxiety are pills that block the sympathetic nervous system.

•When your blood sugar becomes too low, this will trigger a sympathetic response that both raises blood sugar, but also creates many of the classic signs of sympathetic activation (e.g., a racing heart rate, sweating, anxiety). In a subset of people, they cannot effectively maintain their blood sugar levels with a typical diet, and hence frequently experience “reactive hypoglycemia” (or subacute forms with difficulty focusing and concentrating). Oddly, while this condition is quite common, it is rarely recognized and often erroneously treated with benzodiazepines rather than a healthier diet.

•When the normal function of the central nervous system gets disrupted, anxiety can often follow. One of the most interesting illustrations of this we’ve repeatedly observed is that a subset of anxiety prone individuals significantly improve in Wifi-free environments, and in many cases they’ve shared that “their spines feel better” (suggesting something changed within the spinal cord). Likewise, in a recent article, I detailed extensive Russian research showing that chronic stress disrupts the microcirculation to the brain, which in turn creates neuronal damage which causes both anxiety and depression unless an agent like DMSO counteracts it.
Note: we’ve also noticed that disabling Wifi routers at night can help with anxiety and that there were temporary spikes in it at the time a significant change occurred in the ambient EMF exposure (e.g., during the 5G rollout) which people then adapted to and it disappeared.

•Artificial lights (particularly blue light) irritate the nervous system and can cause anxiety. Likewise, circadian disruptions (which are caused by blue light) and sleep disruption often cause anxiety (which is unfortunate because anxiety also causes insomnia). Conversely, simple things like going outside fist thing in the morning and having sunlight contact your face and eyes (e.g., while having a walk) can often do wonders for psychiatric conditions like anxiety and depression.

•I frequently find individuals with vaccine injuries (particularly COVID vaccine injuries) develop anxiety. Presently I believe this is either due to heart damage (e.g., irregular heart rates can trigger anxiety), impaired blood flow to the brain (or drainage from the brain), or vaccine induced neurological damage within the brain (the correlates of which are discussed further here).

•Thyroid disorders and various types of heart disease can sometimes trigger anxiety (as can other rarer conditions like paraneoplastic syndromes where tumors release signaling molecules).

Metabolic Causes of Anxiety

William Walsh analyzed the blood of 2,800 individuals with depression and discovered there were five common patterns of depression.

Note: these tables were derived from the information within Walsh’s excellent book Nutrient Power: Heal Your Biochemistry and Heal Your Brain. In Walsh’s experience, it is ideal to work with someone trained in nutritionally rebalancing metabolic depression as providing the wrong micronutrient can sometimes make things worse.

Some of the reasons this framework is beneficial are:

•If the metabolic biotype of depression is recognized, it can frequently be safely and permanently treated with natural therapies (e.g., copper overload is highly applicable to postpartum depression).

•It explains why patients will often have very positive or negative responses to medications (e.g., SSRIs are helpful for undermethylators but cause severe reactions for overmethylators). Likewise, it helps predict if patients will have an adverse reaction to supplements or other medications (e.g., undermethylators tend to have histamine sensitivities—something which often worsens with psychiatric medications).

•Anxiety often occurs concurrently with depression in these biotypes and hence can be treated (or fully resolved) by treating the biotype.

•These individuals have different responses to benzodiazepines. Specifically, undermethylators have a poor response to them, overmethylators have a positive response to them (as overmethylation depletes GABA), and those with a copper overload find benzodiazepines improve their anxiety but not depression (whereas SSRIs improve their depression but worsen their anxiety).

Lifestyle Causes of Anxiety

When there is too much stagnation in the body (particularly in the head), individuals have a tendency to overthink things. This I believe, explains why:

•A large meta-analysis found physical activity is 1.5 times more effective than psychiatric medications and psychotherapy at reducing mild-to-moderate symptoms of depression, psychological stress, and anxiety than medication or cognitive behavior therapy. This, in turn, ties to routine walking being one of the most important things we can do for health and longevity, but sadly, many adults do not.

•Conditions that create fluid stagnation in the body (ie. COVID-19, vaccine injuries, or cancer) often create depression and anxiety.

•We frequently observe that tight or synthetic clothing (discussed further here) makes individuals more prone to anxiety, something I believe results from both blood and lymphatic flow being directly constricted by the clothing. Tight clothing restricting one’s breathing (this is often extremely important to address when treating anxiety), and synthetic fibers create positive charges (which then adversely affect the physiologic zeta potential and create fluid stagnation).

•Many approaches that improve stagnation in the body improve anxiety (e.g., sexual intercourse, hot bathing, and electrical grounding have been found to decrease anxiety).

•Excessive time on the computer creates anxiety, particularly since blue light overstimulates the brain and pulls you into your head (e.g., I feel much calmer writing when I use a blue light blocking technology).

•Many traditions (e.g., Chinese medicine) believe that anxiety results from too much energy being in the head, and hence focus on making individuals be grounded (which often works).

One of my general beliefs is that there has been a massive decrease in the vitality of the human species (as for the last 150 years, again and again, I’ve found new illnesses emerged, the rates of chronic illnesses kept increasing, and natural therapies which previously were highly effective in treating illnesses became much less effective for the current conditions).

Collectively, I believe much of this results from modern technology, nutritional depletion, circadian disruptions, and fluid stagnation within our bodies, and that beyond this affecting physical health, it also affects emotional and mental health. Because of this, the treatments that are utilized to treat anxiety only have marginal efficacy, and one can often try very hard to stop overthinking things, but nonetheless still do so (as their anxiety has a physiologic cause).

Treating Anxiety and Benzodiazepine Dependence

In my experience, it is always preferable to deal with the underlying causes of anxiety as doing so safely creates permanent solutions to the issue, but in many cases this is not feasible (e.g., because the patient lives far away or you can only spend a limited amount of time with them). Because of this, I’ve looked at a variety of natural anxiety aids over the years, and found quite a few that clearly help but lack the immense risks of benzodiazepines. Likewise, there are a variety of other promising options that have not received that much attention from the medical field. Conversely however, I’ve also known otherwise highly talented colleagues who never were able to successfully treat anxiety naturally.

In the final part of this article, I will discuss each of those methods, the approaches we find effectively treat anxiety (e.g., supplements, other natural therapies, where other anxiety medications are appropriate, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and beneficial mind-body therapies), and some of the most effective approaches we have identified for withdrawing from benzodiazepines.

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• Since the dawn of vaccination, authorities have habitually doubled down on unsafe and ineffective vaccines, regardless of the pushback they received or the evidence against them.

• Sustaining this has required increasingly brazen methods to censor and conceal the deluge of “extremely rare” injuries caused by an ever-expanding vaccination schedule.

• Senator Ron Johnson, who has worked tirelessly to expose this coverup, recently held a Senate hearing aptly titled: “Unmasked: How Biden Health Officials Purposely Turned a Blind Eye Toward COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Signals.”

• Faced with a tsunami of vaccine injuries too large for anyone to ignore, the FDA and CDC searched for a way to statistically dismiss it, eventually settling on effectively comparing Moderna’s injury rate to Pfizer’s and declaring the vaccines “safe” because there was no major difference between the two.

• When a senior FDA analyst pointed out this obvious flaw and suggested comparing them to less toxic vaccines instead, documents show the entire FDA turned against her to suppress her findings. As a result, dozens of conditions we have all seen the COVID vaccines cause were never officially linked to them—despite the data clearly showing they were.

• The unprecedented damage caused by the COVID-19 vaccines has created a historic loss of trust in the parties who covered it up, giving us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to force them to start telling the truth and end an immunization experiment that has profoundly damaged the health of our society.

I have long believed in a “law of equilibrium” which posits that most things are cyclical and will eventually be brought back into balance. Mechanistically, this frequently results from existing phenomena being the result of competing forces reaching a balance point (e.g., you don't fall through the floor because the ground pushes up on you just as hard as gravity pulls you down) and because nature’s design utilizes feedback loops to maintain balance.

This process is commonly referred to as “negative feedback,” where anything that shifts a system away from its center (e.g., its “set point”) triggers a response that counteracts that change (e.g., a thermostat kicks on the heat when the temperature drops too low, or turns on the AC when it climbs too high). Biology in turn, has many layers of these negative feedback loops (where one thing counteracts another which counteracts another etc.) which collectively are able to keep the immensely complex orchestra of life functioning.

Conversely, “positive feedback loops” also exist, where a shift from baseline triggers a further shift from baseline (e.g., forest fires spreading, fruit ripening, the blood clotting cascade, the hormonal surge triggering ovulation, or childbirth contractions) but these are far rarer and ultimately still “turn off” because they rapidly consume a self-limiting resource.

Due to the cyclical nature of history, I have noticed the same vaccine fiascos repeat again and again, but each time, are forgotten, and hence able to repeat again. Briefly, the process is typically as follows:

•A new (dubious) vaccine is introduced and marketed with immense fanfare despite the existing evidence showing it does not deserve that fanfare.

•Once the vaccine hits the population, a significant number of vaccine failures and injuries inevitably occur.

•Once this happens, health authorities (and healthcare workers) respond by exaggerating the benefits, moving the goal posts from what was originally promised, and sweeping all the injuries under the rug.

•This produces increasing pushback from the public and resistance towards vaccinating.

•As time goes on, rather than acknowledge the shortcomings of the vaccine, the failures of the vaccine begin being increasingly blamed not enough people vaccinating (e.g., to reach “herd immunity”). As such, more and more aggressive mandates are instituted which create stronger and stronger public resistance against the program.

I named this the “vaccine positive feedback loop” because if things were functioning normally, the injuries and failures of the vaccine would trigger a negative feedback response that would cause the vaccine program to be pulled back—but instead a rather curious and unnatural thing occurs—the devotion to them increases. This I believe cuts to the core of why “vaccines are a religion” and why vaccine proponents will always double down on what they are doing rather than admit fault.

Recognizing that this is a recurring cycle, my focus hence has been on exposing the cycle, as I feel it is only through the knowledge of what our society is actually trapped in that it will be possible to free ourselves from it.

Note: a major reason I've focused on umbrella therapies like DMSO is that their mechanisms of action are in many ways the inverse of what vaccines do, which provides a concrete way to understand why so many different vaccines can cause such a wide range of neurological and autoimmune injuries. This for example was why my recent article on DMSO treating “incurable” neurological injuries had to be so detailed, but now that that has been done, a much shorter version which references the more extensive summary can be published (and will be).

Reducing “Vaccine Hesitancy”

One of the most depressing facets of the “vaccine positive feedback loop” is how consistently both doctors and government officials will sweep vaccine injuries under the rug to maintain public confidence in the vaccine, with the earliest example I’ve found being one that Suzanne Humphries unearthed:

Mr. Henry May, writing to the Birmingham Medical Review, in January, 1874 reported that deaths as a result of vaccination were often not reported because of an allegiance to the practice. Often a vaccinated person was recorded as having died from another condition such as chicken pox or erroneously listed as unvaccinated.

Polio Coverups

When producing the original (Salk) polio vaccine, manufacturers faced a delicate balance: the live poliovirus had to be fully inactivated with formaldehyde to ensure safety, but excessive inactivation could damage key viral antigens and weaken the immune response. This required a series of careful steps to strike an appropriate balance and during the clinical trials, three different parties (Salk, the US government and the manufacturers) tested the vaccines for safety.

Once the vaccine was approved, changes were made to the vaccine to increase potency (a preservative was removed), inactivation protocols became much more lax (increasing potency), and testing was delegated to manufacturers (despite large deviations from Salk’s inactivation protocols)—all of which was essentially done to meet the large demand for the polio vaccine as the trial approach was not feasible to implement at scale.

As a result, on April 12^th (based on the recent clinical trials), was declared “safe, effective, and potent,” and licensed the same day. The next day, widespread vaccinations began, and around April 24^th polio began being reported in recipients, ultimately causing 40,000 recipients to develop non-paralytic polio, 200 to develop paralytic polio and 10 to die.

To solve this public relations nightmare (which given previous assurances greatly shook public confidence in vaccines), the US government chose to blame it on faulty manufacturing from one of the five producers (who recalled their vaccines) but stand behind the other four. However, to quote Turtles All the Way Down (and Paul Offit):

Alexander Langmuir, the CDC’s chief epidemiologist, and Dr. Neil Nathanson, who at the time headed the CDC’s polio surveillance unit. The two conducted a follow-up investigation into the Cutter Incident and discovered that Wyeth’s vaccine had also caused several cases of paralysis. Following their report, the company silently recalled the allegedly “hot lot” from the market. No one other than senior US health officials ever saw that report.

“It was never released to the media,” Offit writes, “never shown to polio researchers, never shown to the National Foundation, never shown to polio vaccine advisers, never distributed to health care professionals, never published in medical journals, and never made available to defense attorneys in subsequent lawsuits against Cutter Laboratories. As a result, only a handful of people knew about the problem with Wyeth’s vaccine.”

Years later, Nathanson said he thought the report had been buried due to officials’ wish to maintain public confidence in the Salk vaccine: “As long as the problem was with one manufacturer [i.e., Cutter] and a couple of lots of vaccine, it would be viewed as an aberration due to sloppy manufacturing or testing procedures and not an intrinsic problem. Once it was extended to a second manufacturer, it would be seen as intrinsic to the product.” In this scenario, Offit further clarifies, ”people would be afraid to use any polio vaccine.”

Likewise, after a panel was convened to investigate the disaster:

Perhaps the most disturbing element of the entire program, has been the disparity between the risks that were known to be involved and the repeated assurances of safety.—Paul Meier, professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health

The National Foundation, in a memo sent to doctors, also stated emphatically that the [polio] vaccine was completely safe and that the risk of ensuing paralysis was “zero”.

The best way to push forward a new program is to decide on what you think the best decision is and not question it thereafter, and further, not to raise questions before the public or expose the public to open discussion of the issue.—Paul Meier (sarcastically) speaking at an expert panel on the polio vaccine.

Finally, in 1984, amid tort litigation raising technical questions about whether the original 1961–1962 clinical trial lots met the monkey neurovirulence test standards, the FDA loosened the clinical trial requirements for licensure so that any remaining regulatory doubts about the vaccine’s safety would not undermine the immunization program. Their announcement, in turn, was quite explicit:

Leaked transcripts have also revealed this mentality. For example, in a private June 2000 meeting, the CDC, WHO and vaccine manufactures discussed Verstraeten’s CDC analysis showing mercury in vaccines had a dose-dependent association with neurodevelopmental disorders. Expressing concern the study had ever been done, the WHO’s representative stated “My mandate as I sit here in this group is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized… and that will have to be with thimerosal containing vaccines unless a miracle occurs,” urging the group to present findings to the ACIP in a way that would not get “exposed to the traps which are out there in public relations.” Another warned that “the medical legal findings in the study, causal or not, are horrendous,” while the meeting’s own chairman, Dr. Dick Johnston, admitted, “I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on.” The study was stamped “DO NOT COPY OR RELEASE” on every page, and over the next three years the data was reworked until the significant associations largely disappeared in the version published in Pediatrics in 2003—by which time Verstraeten had left the CDC for GlaxoSmithKline.
Note: it should come as no surprise that despite decades of attempts to access this study's underlying database, the CDC has blocked every single one, leaving us to having to trust that their in-house analyses always correctly determined safety.

Likewise, Gavin Debecker’s Forbidden Facts, was written to expose leaked transcripts from the IOM’s closed Immunization Safety Review Committee meetings—which were tasked with definitively evaluating vaccine safety but instead prioritized downplaying risks to avoid eroding public confidence and triggering vaccine hesitancy. Committee members repeatedly framed their approach around protecting vaccination uptake. For example, Dr. Michael Kaback stated, “The more negative that presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination… We are kind of caught in a trap.” Dr. Bennett Shaywitz warned that any “waffling” could lead parents to opt for single vaccines [which are safer but less profitable], noting “everybody knows that that is going to reduce the vaccinating of children.” Dr. Steven Goodman emphasized they had to be “very, very careful” about quantifying side effects, lest it be seen as an “ideologic bias” harming public trust. This mindset shaped their wording and conclusions toward reassurance rather than full scientific transparency.

Looking into the present, as doubts about vaccines have continued to increase, the messaging on every platform has shifted to the urgent need to “reduce vaccine hesitancy” by censoring any information about serious adverse effects of vaccination. Given that Peter Marks (the FDA bureaucrat who was essentially in charge of the COVID vaccines and stonewalled all investigations into their harms) frequently publicly spoke out against vaccine misinformation and the dangerous vaccine hesitancy it caused, I suspected the longstanding tradition to bury vaccine injuries to preserve public trust in vaccination was alive and well throughout COVID-19. To quote the recent Senate investigations:

Records that the Subcommittee has obtained to date [5/21/25] offer a simple, yet troubling, answer to these questions: Biden administration officials knew in early 2021 that the mRNA COVID-19 injections could result in adverse health events and they downplayed the risks [e.g., myocarditis] to avoid alarming the public and create vaccine hesitancy. As a result, they violated what should be the inviolable principle of informed consent [and mandated the vaccine for virtually every American].

By May 2021, senior officials in the FDA’s CBER (the unit responsible for COVID-19 vaccine safety surveillance), drafted an email to Dr. Szarfman [who was providing evidence of serious vaccine harm], directing Dr. Szarfman to “hold off on creating and sending data mining reports and analyses.” Dr. Peter Marks, a staunch supporter of the COVID19 vaccines who at the time led CBER [and had told Szarfman to cease and desist in her activities], eventually warned [Dr. Szarfman’s boss] that Dr. Szarfman’s data mining could “create erroneous conflicts that feed in to anti-vaccination rhetoric.

Exposing the Coverup

Senator Johnson has spent more than four years working around the clock, regardless of the pushback he receives, to expose the COVID cartel and help those injured by its greed. In doing so, he has, for the first time, provided conclusive evidence that authorities habitually lie about vaccines, which I believe is necessary to finally break the toxic cycle we are trapped within.

Recently he held a hearing to present what his Senate investigative team had unearthed, a few parts of which I’d like to highlight. First, in his opening statement, he concisely lays out conclusive proof that the FDA and CDC compulsively covered up COVID vaccine injuries, while also demonstrating why anyone with basic common sense could tell a massive coverup was underway.

Note: the report Johnson references can be read here.

That opening statement alone was sufficient to make the hearing’s intended point. However, I chose to watch the rest, in large part because I was curious how Senator Blumenthal (the lead voice defending the pharmaceutical industry at each of these hearings) would attempt to defend the indefensible.

His response was, on one hand, somewhat disappointing: at Johnson’s previous hearing, Blumenthal had briefly displayed genuine surprise at and interest in the plight of the vaccine injured, which was entirely absent this time. On the other hand, it was reassuring, as despite his zeal to defend the industry, all he could muster were a few arbitrary denials of Johnson’s findings and emotionally manipulative tangents bearing no relation to the actual evidence, demonstrating that against Johnson’s case, his position was indeed indefensible.
Note: I felt Blumenthal’s most memorable line was “The majority’s report cherry picks, emails, and misconstrues an internal debate between scientists who were actively looking for ways to detect side effect to support a predetermined and flawed thesis that COVID nineteen vaccines have done more harm than good. That’s not the scientific method to have a preconceived result and then frame the evidence to fit the outcome.” This is because the second sentence perfectly characterizes all the science conducted throughout COVID-19 that rationalized ways to prove the vaccines were safe and effective despite immense evidence to the contrary.

To further support his position, Blumenthal summoned a witness (representative of his political base), who testified to the trauma of nearly dying from COVID and then recovering from long COVID—which, while tragic (and likely preventable with non-standard COVID therapies), was again, entirely irrelevant to whether authorities covered up vaccine injuries.

As she detailed her journey and desperate desire to just be heard, I could not help but notice every single thing she described was identical to what the COVID vaccine injured routinely experience, who unlike her, have been gaslighted and forgotten by the medical system and often do not recover. Senator Johnson also immediately picked up on this too, and politely suggested she collaborate with the (far more common) victims of COVID vaccine injuries.

Note: every medication, policy or decision has a trade off between risks and benefits. Propaganda preys upon people’s inability to accurately compute this from limited data by emphasizing one side of the equation and downplaying the other (which for example is why many people who follow mainstream media sincerely believe “long COVID” is a much larger issue than COVID vaccine injuries). Likewise, in this hearing, vaccine proponents repeatedly used the often repeated line “vaccines save lives,” which while true, is immensely deceptive because it omits that in many cases vaccines also kill more people than they save or injure far more than they save.

Other facets of the hearing which jumped out to me included:

1. After vaccine proponents (once again) attempted to whitewash all criticisms of the vaccine by highlighting how incredibly well the COVID response was done in spite of the challenges faced at the time, one Senator pointing out that we need to stop repeating that fable and it is only by acknowledging that serious mistakes were also made that we can avoid making them again in the future (particularly because of how damaging they were to our children).

2. Repeatedly highlighting (as the earlier quotes show) that the senior FDA analyst who demonstrated vaccine harms were being covered up, Dr. Szarfman, was ostracized by her peers and shut down by her superiors. This in turn is very similar to the experience of Andrew Mosholder (a child psychiatrist and FDA safety officer) who in 2003 correctly determined data showed Paxil caused suicidality in children, after which his superiors blocked him from releasing the report (and then a year later, once it was leaked, focused on catching the leaker rather than acting on its findings).

3. There were numerous attempts to dodge FOIA requests which included the FDA simply stopping (potentially incriminating) internal data releases of COVID-19 vaccine adverse event data like Szarfman’s.

4. One witness highlighting that all the vaccine adverse reporting was designed to only report adverse events “no one cared about” such as injection soreness or a fever rather than serious and life changing adverse events people had.

5. Szarfman’s analysis showing 45 conditions were strongly linked to the COVID vaccines (with an upper and lower bound for their increased frequency). Assuming I interpreted the chart shown in the hearing correctly, when put in descending order by the lower bound (which makes a stronger case for causality), the conditions most conclusively linked to the COVID vaccines are as follows:

• Strongest link: Product administered to patient of inappropriate age (Moderna), Acute myocardial infarction (Pfizer), Brain natriuretic peptide increased (Pfizer), Asymptomatic COVID-19 (Pfizer), Electrocardiogram ST segment elevation (Moderna), Blood pressure systolic (Pfizer), COVID-19 pneumonia, Acute myocardial infarction

• Strong link: Brain natriuretic peptide increased, Ischaemic stroke, Drainage, Dementia, Pneumonia aspiration, Cardiac telemetry normal (which indicates it was being frequently checked due to heart concerns), Paraesthesia ear, Magnetic resonance imaging heart (which is done to evaluate for myocarditis)

• Moderate link: Blood pressure systolic (all vaccines), Embolic stroke, Basal ganglia stroke, Cardiac assistance device user, Cardiac telemetry abnormal, Ejection fraction, Sinus rhythm, Hypertensive emergency

• Weaker but Notable: Bell’s palsy, Sudden cardiac death, Pulmonary infarction, Bradykinesia, Cerebral artery occlusion, Diastolic dysfunction, Aortic stenosis, May-Thurner syndrome, Acute left ventricular failure, SARS-CoV-1 test, Cardiac failure chronic, Agonal rhythm, Cholecystitis acute, Product substitution, COVID-19 immunisation, Cardiac telemetry abnormal, AST/ALT ratio abnormal, Diaphragmatic spasm, Mastoid disorder, Percutaneous coronary intervention, Aortic aneurysm rupture, Thalamic infarction

That chart, in turn, was quite notable to me, as most of the conditions on it I’d previously concluded were probably linked to the COVID vaccines as I’d seen people develop them shortly after vaccination, and in many cases, would never have otherwise expected them to. That, in turn, highlights a recurring theme with the COVID vaccines—the harms were frequent enough that people like me with extremely limited datasets could accurately detect the signals of harm from the vaccines—so it’s hard to conceive they were “too rare” for health authorities who had access to infinitely larger pools of data to identify.

6. Much in the same way the early polio vaccines had major issues when their production was scaled up for the general population, the COVID vaccines did as well (because they switched from duplicating the mRNA with PCR to having bacteria mass synthesize it—resulting in dangerous synthetic bacterial DNA contaminating the vaccines). At this hearing, I learned there was supposed to be a comparison study between Pfizer’s old and new production methods of the vaccine (which like many other “required” tests was magically never done), and that later Pfizer’s vaccine (the dilutant) was changed again without being tested.

Finally, a few of the participants were quite blunt about how egregious this all was. Here for instance, Senator Hawley points out that the entire COVID vaccine affair was an unconscionable money grab the government pushed along while “All of the public health problems get offloaded onto other people, namely the American people…All of the costs get borne by the patients” (after which Johnson highlights how the government, from the start, also abandoned the vaccine injured).

Or to quote one witness, who after highlighting that the emergency use authorizations for the COVID vaccines was contingent upon extremely robust safety monitoring of them in the marketplace stated:

This isn’t a blind spot. The FDA was completely blind to adverse events, and the CDC wasn’t even looking. There was a savior in the ranks of the FDA who correctly identified the problem, appropriately worked with the inventor of EB data mining to create a solution, communicated the fix to everyone who would listen. The problem is no one listened. Luck was not on our side.

The CDC failed to look. The FDA failed to fix a broken system that the CDC touted as the gold standard. The HHS failed to protect us, especially after our freedom of choice was assaulted by the president threatening us all with our patience is wearing thin. FOIA evasion was well practiced and discovered, obviously, not through a FOIA. Simply put, during the largest pharmaceutical rollout in human history, pharmacovigilance did not exist.

That is the betrayal of our time, so vast that we cannot even count its casualties.

Masking Illness

One of my foundational beliefs has been that humanity has experienced a massive decline in vitality over the last 250 years as:

•Many of my mentors reports that from the start of their careers to the end, patients became sicker and less responsive to the therapies which had previously worked on them.

•In many cases, they found both colleagues and their own mentors shared these observations, and in a few cases, confirmed their mentors had received a similar response from the people who trained them.

•Corroborating this, I found numerous medical texts, beginning in the early 1800s which showed new degenerative diseases had begun emerging and detailed examples of treatments being used with a much higher degree of efficacy than when I observe in the present.

•Many data sets show chronic illness has continually increased as time has moved forward.

One of the insidious things about this decline is that since it is never talked about (rather medical training just focuses on the “dark ages of infectious disease vaccines miraculously vanquished”), it is very hard for medical practitioners to recognize this larger trend has occurred. As such, each new generation of medical practitioners becomes habituated to the current baseline of illness, and unless they live at a time when there is a massive and permanent spike in illness, rarely are cognizant of what has occurred.

Because of this, we’ve put a lot of thought into what is actually causing this massive decline in human vitality, have identified roughly 10 key agents, and believe one of the most impactful ones is widespread vaccination (e.g., the permanent spikes in illness typically coincide with the introduction of particularly dangerous vaccines, beginning with the original smallpox ones and most recently with the COVID-19 vaccines).

Doctoring Data

Over the years, I’ve heard many different definitions of intelligence, one of which is one’s aptitude for manipulating logical symbols towards a desired outcome. In turn, many facets of human society ultimately boil down to competing parties trying to rearrange what’s there to their advantage (e.g., rhetoric is essentially the skill of how you do that with your words to control people).

One of the particularly unfortunate things about science is that while it began as a tool those interested in seeking truth relied upon to further that goal, once this started producing results and social capital, the unscrupulous members of society seized upon science to promote their own agendas and no longer prioritized accuracy.

Because of this, a lot of “science,” much like rhetoric, is simply an exercise in rearranging the data obtained (or how the data is obtained) until it can be put into a configuration which credibly supports your message. As such, being able to interpret the scientific literature has become somewhat of an art, as you need a complex toolset to separate fact from fabricated fiction.

Vaccine Masking

Vaccines have a dose-dependent toxicity, so as you take more of them, you are more likely to develop chronic neurological or autoimmune diseases. Since the vaccine industry, like many others, is continually growth focused (and has very unique protections from the Federal government), there has been a continual trend to give people more and more vaccines.

This has reciprocally led to a sustained increase in chronic illness (sometimes beginning immediately following vaccination) which has become harder and harder to cover up as it gets increasingly frequent. To address this, the vaccine industry has used increasingly aggressive methods to censor those injuries, so people do not connect them to vaccinations, and for those who nonetheless do, they will be widely ridiculed by those around them. This for example is why:

•Medical journals used to publish severe vaccine injury case reports (many of which are summarized here) but now never will.

•Television stations used to regularly air programs on individuals having their lives ruined by vaccines (56 of which I compiled here), but now never do due to Clinton-era regulatory changes allowing pharmaceutical advertising to buy out the media (which RFK is presently trying to reverse).

•So much work has gone into making it socially acceptable to demonize anyone who questions vaccines and hence end any question on the subject.

•Tech platforms (until recently) aggressively censored content critical of vaccination.

Likewise, a variety of absurd epistemological frameworks have been erected to sanctify the notion vaccines are completely safe and cannot harm you.

Aaron Siri, for example, in his book about the religion of vaccines (Vaccines Amen) highlighted that all of vaccine science is predicated on the notion that vaccines are completely safe and effective, so any evidence, regardless of how weak it is that supports this is viewed as true, while any evidence which refutes it, regardless of how robust it is, is typically disregarded.

This in turn, has allowed a rather remarkable standard to be accepted within vaccine clinical trials where rather than vaccines being tested against placebos, they are tested against other vaccines, and only deemed to be dangerous if their rate of harm is significantly higher than the other vaccine. Because of this, it is possible to “chain” vaccine studies together, where increasingly toxic vaccines are deemed “safe” (as they are only somewhat more harmful than the one that immediately preceded them and the newer vaccine was tested against).
Note: the justification for this experimental design is that “vaccines are so safe and effective and lifesaving that it is unethical to deny children in trials vaccines, so rather than placebo, they should get the previous “safe” vaccine.” Beyond that being absurd (as it’s far more unethical to inject every child with an untested vaccine), in many cases, the vaccine “placebo” is a completely different vaccine (which entirely defeats the logic of that argument).

One of the most insidious things about this framework is that it effectively hides the continual increase in chronic illness, as it occurs in tandem with increasing vaccine side effects being viewed as “normal” and not elevated from baseline (whereas they clearly are were the vaccines to be compared to an actual placebo).

Note: as you might expect, most of the basic studies necessary to determine vaccine safety, especially multiple at a time, have never been done because they are “unethical.” Conversely, when the studies that can be done are nonetheless done (retrospective or observational), they all show vaccines cause a massive increase in illness (typically a 2.5 to 9 fold increase), but are always dismissed for not having placebos (which can never “ethically” be done).

Interestingly, a very similar safeguard is put into Federal vaccine safety monitoring.

Specifically, the CDC uses the Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) to help identify potential safety signals in VAERS data (which only exists because a law forced the government to have a public reporting system available). The PRR compares the proportion of a specific adverse event reported for a given vaccine against the proportion of that same event reported across all other vaccines in the database to determine if that side effect is disproportionately higher in the vaccine in question. The FDA likewise utilizes a similar disproportionality analysis which uses additional statistical measures that reject certain links the PRR would establish.

While this approach can detect fairly unique side effects linked to a specific vaccine, it has major blind spots:

• Due to the top half of the formula, it struggles to flag individual side effects for vaccines that cause a high overall rate of adverse events. If nearly every side effect is elevated for that vaccine, no single one stands out proportionally compared to the vaccine’s own other reported events.

• Due to the bottom half of the formula, it cannot easily detect side effects that occur across many different vaccines (e.g., certain neurological, autoimmune, or cardiac events), because those events are also elevated in the comparator group, making the vaccine in question look less unusual.

• Additionally (due to the bottom half) when two or more similar vaccines enter the market at the same time and both have much higher adverse event rates than older vaccines, the PRR becomes heavily masked as the “all other vaccines” baseline gets flooded by reports from the other new vaccine(s), so neither one stands out as disproportionate.

When I learned about the PRR, I immediately noticed how well-engineered it was to conceal the ever increasing harm from vaccination, as harm would always be assessed against a previous (already increased baseline) and increases large enough to trigger a signal were hard enough to reach they would rarely if ever happen. More remarkably, this system also provided the magic solution for an incredibly toxic vaccine being released onto the market, provided there were at least two different ones released simultaneously.

As it happened, seven weeks after the first COVID-19 vaccines received Emergency Use Authorization, and as VAERS began receiving a surge of adverse event reports, the CDC issued its VAERS Standard Operating Procedures for COVID-19. In that document, the agency formally designated the Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) as one of its primary tools for routine safety signal detection, stating it would perform PRR data mining on a weekly basis or as needed (something I am almost certain was done as it was the only way to hide the massive signal of vaccine injury).

Note: despite this, the CDC eventually stopped doing even this to (while making numerous false statements on what it had done) and ultimately deferred to the analysis to the FDA’s “more robust system.”

The net result of this approach hence was that things like this “were not signals” because they were being compared to other massively elevated baselines.

Szarfman in turn came up with a fairly obvious solution to this problem: rather than compare an mRNA vaccine to all other vaccines plus the other mRNA vaccine, you don’t include the other mRNA vaccine in the comparison (red vs. blue rather than red vs red plus blue). However, despite being incredibly obvious, since that revealed critical issues with the COVID vaccine the existing approach masked, it hence was not acceptable (and we only even learned about it thanks to Johnson’s lengthy investigation).

One in a Million

Since vaccine injuries are frequent and unavoidable, the medical industry’s solution has been to reframe them as “very rare” so people are not alarmed by injuries they run into, and at some point settled on the phrase “that injury is one in a million”(which may have originated from the smallpox vaccine’s encephalitis rate — somewhere between 7 and 1,444 per million vaccinated), alongside assurances robust support is in place for the one in a million who are injured.

Because of that, a schizophrenic dichotomy exists with vaccine injuries where:
1. Common but relatively inconsequential ones are publicized (e.g., injection site pain or being ill for a few days), after which concerns about them are dismissed by highlighting the inconsequential nature of the injury.
2. The severe and life altering ones which affect large numbers of people are relentlessly denied.
3. The extraordinarily rare ones which are unique to specific vaccines are emphasized, and in some cases results in the vaccine being pulled if an alternative is available (e.g., this happened with one rotavirus vaccine).

This hence makes it possible to create the illusion of robust vaccine safety, as people will assume that if regulators are strict enough to go after extraordinarily rare things, they will definitely go after common things (further reinforced by the focus on inconsequential reactions). That, I believe is also why:

•The system used in VAERS to detect injuries (PRR) can only detect unique and rare injuries, whereas the common injuries everyone cares about seen across vaccination (category 2) are essentially never are flagged by it.

•Monitoring systems like V-safe which were designed to detect category 2 injuries were discarded by the FDA and CDC once they realized it was detecting large numbers of category 2 injuries.

•The NIH was initially very interested in providing support to individuals like Brianne Dressen who received severe neurological injuries from the vaccines (and even provided a costly treatment that somewhat worked), but once they realized her injury wasn’t “rare,” pivoted to ghosting her and blocking the publication of the research studies she participated in (as a very rare side effect they could treat would increase confidence in vaccination, whereas acknowledging a common one would decrease confidence and exceed their budget to treat every instance of).

•The FDA made a big deal of temporarily pausing the J&J vaccine due to a few cases of a very rare blood clot (cerebral venous sinuses thrombosis), while ignoring the far more common clotting risk of the mRNA vaccines.

Conclusion

Over the eons, many have concluded one of the greatest mistakes humans make is believing they can hijack and dominate natural processes rather than recognize their influence over them will be temporary at best and create significant strain in the process (e.g., most pharmaceutical drugs work by artificially shifting the enzymatic baselines within the body, something that commonly provokes resistance to the drugs and increasing side effects as the body deviates further and further from its baseline).

However, a major reason why I believe in the “law of equilibrium” is because in instances where it appears to not be being followed (e.g., during a positive feedback loop, or when expected negative feedback fails to materialize) on a broader scale it still is and the expected changes still occur.

Because of this, in instances where it appears people have been able to successfully suppress a natural equilibrium, a broader feedback loop will eventually take over. For example, in the case of vaccines, for 250 years, we have seen a continually escalating cycle of more and more powerful methods being used to push vaccines upon an increasingly resistant public (which has been incredibly depressing to witness as I’ve lost count of how many people I know whose lives were ruined by vaccines and then gaslit by everyone around them as the majority of people could not conceive these injuries could ever occur in the first place).

However, while propaganda has an incredible ability to sweep things under the rug, it has limits, and because of just how many people were injured by the COVID vaccines (e.g., polls consistently show 12-20% of those vaccinated were injured; often seriously), it has become impossible to cover up (e.g., 49–55% now believe the vaccines caused significant unexplained deaths). Furthermore, a much broader loss of trust has occurred in vaccines, the medical system, and health authorities that dwarfs anything else in the history of medicine (all of which I detailed here). Consider for example how scathing Hawley’s language was towards the pharmaceutical industry; we never heard statements like these before and they are only being said (before the midterms) because a large portion of the electorate supports them. The tide, at long last, appears to be turning—not because the truth changed, but because it finally became too large to hide.

To learn how other readers have benefitted from this publication and the community it has created, their feedback can be viewed here. Additionally, an index of all the articles published in the Forgotten Side of Medicine can be viewed here.

• DMSO is an “umbrella remedy” capable of treating a wide range of challenging ailments due to its combination of therapeutic properties (e.g., improving circulation, reducing inflammation, protecting cells from a myriad of otherwise lethal stressors, and reviving dying cells).

• These properties make DMSO uniquely suited to treat “incurable” neurological disorders, and in conjunction with forgotten research on the effects of microcirculatory impairments, reshape our understanding of the causes of neurological (and psychiatric) diseases.

• DMSO has shown remarkable promise for cognitive impairment, brain fog, and memory loss from a wide range of causes (e.g., aging, vascular disease, anesthesia, post-COVID or pharmaceutical poisoning), along with improving sleep quality and dream vividness — often by resolving the pain, breathing difficulties, or neurological conditions (e.g., restless leg syndrome) that were preventing restorative sleep.

• Extensive data supports DMSO’s use for the major neurodegenerative diseases — including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Huntington’s, and multiple sclerosis — and protein misfolding diseases such as prion disorders and Niemann-Pick disease, where DMSO’s ability to act as a chemical chaperone (stabilizing proteins and dissolving toxic aggregates) and augment cranial drainage is particularly relevant.

• Numerous psychiatric conditions (e.g., schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, and PTSD) have responded to DMSO, as have seizures and epilepsy, movement disorders, encephalitis, myasthenia gravis, and hydrocephalus.

• DMSO has also produced striking developmental improvements in children with Down syndrome across multiple clinical studies, along with many other neurodevelopmental disorders.

• This article will synopsize the extensive data demonstrating DMSO’s efficacy for CNS neurological diseases (approximately 2000 studies and 200 pertinent reader testimonials), share pertinent (non-DMSO) discoveries we’ve made about neurological diseases over the years, and then conclude with practical guidance on DMSO protocols and complementary approaches that also aid in the treatment of common neurological disorders.

DMSO has remarkable therapeutic utility across a wide range of challenging conditions yet is largely unknown. Recognizing this, I spent the last two years compiling the data which shows DMSO treats a wide array of conditions including lung issues (e.g. COPD and Asthma), skin issues (including hair loss), many different types of pain, arthritis, tissue injury (e.g., sprains or burns), eye issues (e.g., vision loss or dry eyes), autoimmune disorders, dental issues, gastrointestinal diseases, infections, and cancers (along with how DMSO’s efficacy can be further enhanced by combining it with pharmaceuticals or natural therapies).

As each of the above articles, drawing upon thousands of forgotten research studies, made a convincing case to try DMSO, they collectively received millions of views, and thousands of readers (currently over 6000) reported to me that improvements happened across a vast swathe of conditions they were dealing with, many of which were life-changing or match those in this 1980 news program:

More importantly, much in the same way Mike Wallace successfully revived interest in DMSO in 1980 after the FDA successfully spent two decades largely burying it, this series has again created a renewed interest in one of the most accessible and effective remedies available to us.

Since DMSO is particularly well-suited to treating neurological diseases (which often “nothing can be done about”), some of the most profound stories I’ve received related to neurological diseases. Likewise, consider this conversation I had a few days ago with James Miller MD, a physician, who inspired by the results reported here, began using it in a large number of his patients, and frequently seeing astonishing results he was initially left in disbelief by.

JM: Hope you are doing well. Just checking in, haven't seen a lot of your postings lately.

Me: Sorry, I turned into a ghost. I have been working as hard as I can on getting the DMSO neurology article done; there’s just so much to unpack.

JM: It is my impression, with no hard data, that ~80% of everything people see neurologists for goes away with DMSO. That is what my patients reflect back to me who choose to trial DMSO for their neurological problems.

Me: That’s basically why I’ve been working so hard on this.

Likewise, I recently received a remarkable testimonial from an ALS patient (the horrible terminal disease we’ve seen decades of research fundraisers for) that shows there may be real hope for this incurable disease.

Note: if any of you have profound DMSO stories you would like to share, please share them here and consider reaching out to Rebecca so she can document them.

Lastly, for those of you seeking DMSO protocols and recommendations, they can be found at the end of this article (which I advise reading first to better understand those instructions).

Cellular Protection

DMSO is well-known for protecting cells from many otherwise deadly stressors. For example, it prevents freezing damage to cells, which made modern cryopreservation (cryomedicine) possible, and extensive research shows that this protective effect works across nearly every type of tissue (along with repeatedly saving human fingers and animal ears or limbs^1,2,3 from being lost to frostbite). As the cells of the nervous system are particularly sensitive to injury (and often unable to heal from it), DMSO’s protective qualities are particularly useful for it. Core mechanisms of protection include:

•Reducing oxidative stress^1,2,3,4 and neutralizing harmful free radicals^1,2,3 (e.g., those caused by radiation like hydroxyl) through scavenging charged ions (e.g., H⁺) and forming protective DMSO radicals (along with decreasing lipofuscin formation in human glial cells, reducing the cumulative oxidative damage that drives cellular aging). In hippocampal slices DMSO also counteracted this oxidative stress,^1,2 and in cerebellar granule neurons, this prevented oxidative stress-induced apoptosis and cell death by reducing early mitochondrial impairment and DNA fragmentation^1,2 (with similar benefits also being seen when DMSO was combined with CDK and G9a inhibitors^1,2). Trace amounts of DMSO also protect plants from ozone gas injury and counteract reactive hypochlorous acid, superoxide, and hydrogen peroxide (while simultaneously working synergistically with oxidative therapies and not impairing neutrophil viability).

•Increasing the production of ATP in cells, and facilitating producing it when energy production has been compromised (e.g., minute concentrations of DMSO, as low as 0.000025–0.25%, have been shown to increase cellular metabolism such as by shunting metabolites from glycolysis to the mitochondrial Krebs cycle or to make a part of the mitochondria able to synthesize ATP without the rest of the mitochondria being present^1,2,3,4,5). DMSO also prevented hydroxyl radical-induced mitochondrial aconitase inactivation, ATP depletion, and neuronal damage. Furthermore, DMSO increased the metabolism of pyruvate and glucose in brain slices, protected mice from otherwise lethal nitrogen asphyxiation, and in a study where mice were decapitated, DMSO prolonged how long the mice continued to gasp (breathe) and hence how long brain function continued.
Note: many animal studies are exceedingly cruel and not something I support; however, as they have been done, I felt it was important to share the knowledge certain DMSO ones provided so it would not be necessary to repeat them to acquire that data.

•Protecting cells from dying once the blood supply is cut off (a key reason why so many readers have been able to avoid permanent disability from a stroke), including by preventing the rapid influx of calcium or sodium ions that frequently triggers apoptosis (cell death), and reducing the activity of caspase proteins (which trigger cell death) in the liver, heart, and airway epithelial cells.

Note: ^⬖ designates natural substances used in conjunction with DMSO.

These properties hence allow DMSO to:

•Protect neurons throughout the brain (e.g., in the hippocampus) from a wide range of excitotoxins—which are well-recognized as a common cause of neurodegeneration,^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10} (e.g., in one study DMSO restored 66.7-76.1% of normal electrical activity following glutamate toxicity), and to enhance the protective effects of other protective agents (e.g., syringaresinol,^⬖ isoquinolinesulfonamides, curcumin^⬖ and ginkgo biloba^⬖).^1,2,3,4,5,6

Note: DMSO is routinely combined with other neuroprotective agents such as curcumin^⬖, melatonin,^⬖ baicalin,^⬖ butein,^⬖ icariin,^⬖ naringin,^⬖ 4-PBA, and BPV(phen) , various Chinese medicinals, nitrone compounds, and capsaicin derivatives^⬖ (i.e., in the studies just listed, these combinations reduced neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, ER stress, and apoptosis while enhancing mitochondrial function and autophagy in neuronal cells).

•In carbon monoxide poisoned rats, reducing cerebral neuronal alteration and degenerative rate, along with total cardiac injury score (and also reducing liver injury if combined with ethyl pyruvate).^1,2 Glibenclamide further improved neurological deficit scores, reduced neural cell breakdown (NSE and S-100β) and reduced inflammatory TNF-α and IL-8 levels. Lastly, DMSO’s antioxidant properties have been proposed to confer a potential neuroprotective role in carbon monoxide poisoning.^1,2

•Protect normal cells against chemotherapies such as preventing brain injury, oxidative stress, inflammation and neuronal death from cyclophosphamide (in combination with Scenedesmus obliquus^⬖), cisplatin (alone or in combination with DMFM)^1,2,3 and doxorubicin (where in combination with curcumin^⬖ prevented “chemobrain”).

•Prevent neural cell damage and death from a variety of metals such as lead (alone or in combination with thymoquinone^⬖)^1,2,3 aluminum (alone or in combination with GSK-3β, 3MA or dantrolene)^1,2,3,4 cadmium, mercury (in combination with melatonin^⬖ or curcumin^⬖),^1,2 the toxic form of manganese (alone or in combination with NAC or PAS-Na or a FTO inhibitor),^1,2,3,4 toxic doses of lithium (in combination with curcumin^⬖) along with arsenic (in combination with 3-MA), zinc nanoparticles (in combination with quercetin^⬖) cobalt chloride (in combination with curcumin^⬖) and fluoride (in combination with M3OMG), and thioacetamide.
Note: neuroprotective effects from DMSO in those studies included reductions in oxidative stress, neuronal cell death, calcium dysregulation, intracellular calcium release, birth defects, and histopathological brain damage.

•Protect animals from organophosphates, including otherwise lethal doses of nerve gas^1,2,3,4,5,6 (or to enhance the efficacy of antidotes and reduce brain damage^1,2,3) and to treat snakebites and their associated swelling in humans, cats, horses and dogs.^1,2,3,4,5,6 Similarly, in two horses swarmed by African bees, IV DMSO as part of a combination protocol was able to reverse the severe neurological impairment created by the bee venom within five hours.

•In mice and rats, oxidative stress and neurotoxicity (e.g., in the hippocampus) from a variety of agents has been counteracted by DMSO in combination with another therapeutic agent: ethanol (nimodipine, DAPT or MSM),^1,2,3 methamphetamine (curcumin^⬖) mold aflatoxin (in combination with extracts of Chelidonium majus^⬖ or artichokes^⬖),^1,2 liquid petroleum gas poisoning (a p38MAPK inhibitor), diethyl phthalate and bisphenol S (vanillic acid^⬖), thrombin (estrogen), trimethyltin (carvacrol^⬖), tunicamycin (4-PBA) chlorpyrifos (niosomal hesperidin^⬖ or taxifolin^⬖), calyculin A (melatonin^⬖) fipronil (malvidin hydrochloride^⬖), thapsigargin (Activin A). Likewise, melatonin^⬖ mitigated PBDE-47 (fire retardant) neurotoxicity in PC12 cells.
Note: high-dose ivermectin causes neurotoxicity, limiting its use at higher doses. In one reported case, IV DMSO facilitated a full neurologic recovery in a comatose dog that had ingested a toxic dose of ivermectin paste.

Likewise DMSO also protects cells from a variety of harmful non-chemical stressors by:

•Protecting cells (including in a prophylactic manner) from being damaged by (often otherwise fatal) radiation exposures.^1,2,3,4,5 For example, DMSO prevented X-ray and gamma ray DNA damage to hamster ovary cells, fruit flies and cerebral organoids (e.g., by accelerating DNA repair),^1,2,3,4 and to prevent the harmful (bystander) signals irradiated cells emit in their vicinity from damaging non-radiated cells along with protecting certain bacteria from x-ray exposure.^1,2,3 Likewise, DMSO has been repeatedly shown to reduce chromosome damage from radiation^1,2 and prevent radiation from creating harmful free radicals. As such, DMSO has been shown to protect animals (e.g., mice, rabbits, dogs and monkeys) from often otherwise lethal doses of radiation, and prevent radiation tissue damage (e.g., to the bone marrow, intestinal lining, stem cells, eyes or skin),^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7} and, due to it preventing radiation damage in non-cancerous cells, DMSO has been extensively used as complementary cancer treatment.

Note: DMSO has been combined with many other substances to protect animals from radiation damage such as astragaloside-IV^⬖ (preventing neuronal senescence), rapamycin (repeatedly preventing X-ray induced malformations of cortical development in rat offspring)^1,2 thymoquinone^⬖ (reducing brain peroxynitrite) or a glycogen synthase kinase-3β inhibitor (preventing brain tissue necrosis).

•Preserving the function of nerve fibers exposed to UV radiation.

•Treating a wide variety of burns (detailed here) and protecting the brain from heat damage (along with the previously mentioned cold injuries).

•Protecting cells from osmotic stress and dehydration (and in combination with nimodipine, protect neural cells from osmotic shock while inducing neurite growth).

•Protecting glial cells from being destroyed by sonic disruption via an ultrasonic vibrator (78% vs. 13% survival), and in conjunction with a TRPV4 antagonist, protect hippocampal neurons and microglia from infrasound-induced (16Hz/130dB) apoptosis.

•Preventing the dramatic increase in germ cell death, lifespan shortening, and oxidative stress caused by strong static magnetic fields and likewise preventing similar harm from continual exposure to electrically generated air ions.

•In combination with curcumin,^⬖ protect fetal brain, kidney, and liver from damage caused by low-frequency electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure during pregnancy.

DMSO Safety

Every substance has an effective dose (how much elicits a therapeutic effect) and a toxic dose (how much elicits a harmful effect) with the balance between these two often deciding the value of a therapy (e.g., mercury partially treated syphilis but for centuries caused far more harm than good due to its severe neurotoxicity, and while often effective, certain modern therapies such as chemotherapy cause a lot of issues due to their toxic doses being so close to the therapeutic doses they are routinely prescribed for). Further complicating this, there is often no “correct” dose for everyone, so standardized ones are chosen which work for the majority of the population (which leads to sensitive patients those doses are too high for being routinely injured and then gaslighted by the medical system).

For this reason, I try to utilize therapies with a very wide therapeutic window (meaning the effective dose is much lower than the toxic one), but even in those cases, I still sometimes encounter patients who react to these “safe” doses and need much lower ones.

In the case of DMSO, what has been striking to me is how wide its therapeutic window is (demonstrated by the fact it has an extremely high, “practically non-toxic” LD50 and that rather than harm cells, it will protect them from a wide range of otherwise lethal stressors). Given this and how rapidly DMSO distributes and dilutes in the body, outside of animal experiments where large amounts of DMSO are injected, it is extremely unlikely DMSO can reach a toxic dose (so even in a human safety study where extreme doses were used for a prolonged period, no issues occurred).

That said, with (clean) DMSO, the following issues do exist:

1. Excessive DMSO commonly creates temporary itching and irritation on the skin. This can be avoided by using lower topical concentrations or a natural agent which prevents DMSO’s irritation—but nonetheless still routinely happens due to users using excessive doses.

2. In some individuals, DMSO will create an unpleasant odor (which often can be addressed through one of the methods detailed here).

3. A small number of people (one estimate pegged it at 1 in 2000) are allergic to DMSO. For this reason, it is advised to use topical DMSO first, ascertain if you are having an allergic reaction (rather than a typical skin irritation) and if so, back off, and absolutely avoid systemic applications (e.g., oral).

4. DMSO can bring toxic substances into the body, and in the early days of DMSO, there were rare reports of people becoming ill for a few days after having both DMSO and (now banned) pesticides contact their skin (along with one person who had a nicotine overdose). For this reason, it is generally advised to always wash your skin (with water) after applying DMSO (that has had time to dry), and in modern times, I have not come across reports of this being an issue.

5. DMSO will effectively transport allergens into the skin (leading to it being periodically used to patch test allergens). As some people are allergic to seemingly safe natural substances, this can occasionally cause issues (e.g., in the one report I received, hives followed a DMSO arnica preparation—as a surprising number of people are allergic to arnica).

6. All anti-coagulants carry the risk of excessive bleeding. Since DMSO uses a different method of anti-coagulation, this risk is much smaller, but still possible (e.g., three readers shared it seemed like their nosebleeds increased, and I’ve found one serious reaction in a case report).

7. One of DMSO’s greatest uses is it potentiating medications, but this also means it can increase their toxicity (even though, as the previous section shows, DMSO frequently counteracts toxicity). This has primarily been observed with alcohol, barbiturates, and to a lesser extent benzodiazepines (e.g., one cat study found adding diazepam to harmless IV DMSO caused fatal hypotension and ventricular fibrillation) but modern reports also exist of it increasing the frequency of side effects from more toxic medications (e.g., chemotherapy and fluoroquinolones). A major question is if this is also an issue with anticoagulants, as limited data and a lack of adverse reports suggest it is not, but simultaneously, due to the theoretical risk, we always advise patients to carefully monitor their blood coagulation (which is typically done for anticoagulant regimens). For all of these reasons, it is typically advised to take DMSO at least two hours away from pharmaceutical medications as this minimizes the potential for adverse potentiation.
   Note: the issues with DMSO and alcohol are discussed in more detail here.

8. In sensitive patients, temporary reactions to DMSO (e.g., headaches) can occur with excessive doses. I have also received two reports of extraordinarily sensitive patients (due to longstanding toxicity burdens) who became worse after DMSO due to it mobilizing stored toxins.

9. Over weeks, inhaling high doses of DMSO was found to harm rabbits, so for this reason, DMSO researchers (except for one successful ARDS study) avoided studying nebulized DMSO. Modern DMSO users, however, made the logical extrapolation to start nebulizing DMSO, and found significant benefit from it (e.g., remarkable results with COPD). Those who investigated this concluded a theoretical risk (they’d never observed) existed of nebulized DMSO neutralizing surfactant and collapsing the lung, so they cautioned against higher doses (which will also leach plastic from most nebulizers). Presently, one person (patient of a colleague) has had this happen to them (who due to their body type was already at high risk of a pneumothorax), but outside of that, a lot of people have successfully nebulized DMSO at much higher doses than we’d use without issue.

10. Similar concerns also existed with pregnancy as after injecting high doses of DMSO into or near fetuses was seen to cause developmental damage, very little research was conducted in this area (despite those doses being impossible to reach with standard DMSO uses). Fortunately, large numbers of pregnant and breast feeding parents having used DMSO without issue.
    Note: in a future article I will compile all the research which has been done. Presently, the most definitive (but still not definitive) study showing DMSO safety in pregnant mothers is this one.

11. When cells are exposed to high concentrations of DMSO for prolonged periods (which are impossible to reach in the body), cellular and microcellular injury will occur. Of note, the toxic DMSO thresholds for cancer cells are much lower than normal cells, which is likely one reason why DMSO is an excellent tool for cancer.

Because of the previous, virtually every study I’ve read which utilized DMSO did not report adverse effects from DMSO, serious adverse reports from DMSO are extraordinarily rare, and in almost all instances, those resulted from IV DMSO which was given in conjunction with an embolization agent or stem cells (whereas the much rarer ones from IV DMSO alone typically reversed once the infusion stopped¹,²). As some of these were quite concerning, and did not match what we’d ever seen from IV DMSO (such as in this comprehensive safety study in monkeys or what I’d seen reported by countless practitioners using IV DMSO), I spent a while looking into this and concluded:

•The liquid embolic agents have independent toxicity and may sometimes travel and accidentally obstruct other parts of the circulation (as many of the reports seem to indicate this had happened, and once I checked, product warning labels acknowledged this).

•Many of the patients who receive IV DMSO stem cells are extremely fragile cancer patients (who went through high dose chemo), and hence are more likely to react to therapies, especially a higher doses. Likewise, one study found while dogs generally did not have issues with DMSO, those with chronic kidney disease did from higher IV doses.

•Due to DMSO’s safety, very high IV doses are used. These are often sufficient to create an osmotic shock which will rupture the weakest membranes (e.g., hemolysis is a common complication of higher IV DMSO doses, and in this horse study, was seen alongside significant—but temporary—symptoms when 40% DMSO at ten times the normal dose was rapidly infused into horses).

•The concentrations used for the previous applications are sufficient to leach phthalates from IV tubing. Phalates in turn can cause heart arrhythmias and one DMSO doctor found this was an issue with DMSO injected into the bladder until he switched to different tubing.

•Since DMSO increases parasympathetic activity through cholinesterase inhibition, it can slow the heart rate, particularly if a large amount of it suddenly reaches the heart, so while it typically does not alter cardiac rhythm and has been observed to normalize the reactivity of the autonomic nervous system, at high doses it can be arrhythmic (e.g., a 1-3% DMSO slightly increased the heart rate,^1,2 while 6-10% significantly decreased it but could be reversed with atropine^1,2).

•While practitioners (in recent days and throughout the DMSO literature) using much higher IV DMSO doses than we do do not appear to have run into issues, significant care in identifying appropriate IV DMSO dosing is likely warranted.

Lastly, due to DMSO’s widely recognized safety and negligible toxicity and ability to rapidly transport substances throughout the body, it is often used as an “inert” ingredient to deliver other pharmaceuticals and as a solvent or vehicle to facilitate evaluating the biological effects of large numbers of substances (as without being dissolved or transported, it is often impossible to test them).
Note: in addition to testing therapeutic effects, DMSO will also be used to deliver a harmful agent to trigger a disease^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13} (which makes it very time consuming to filter out therapeutically relevant DMSO studies) or to evaluate a therapy’s mechanism of action by seeing if the specific inhibitor DMSO delivers blocks the therapy’s efficacy (e.g., many Chinese acupuncture studies like this exist^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}).

As similar benefits are seen with many different therapies combined with DMSO (that DMSO alone would cause), this has led me to conclude:

•The toxicity of many toxins has been underestimated due to DMSO’s protective effects counteracting them (something also recognized by a few neurology researchers).

•A key reason benefits seen in pre-clinical studies do not appear in clinical ones (an extraordinarily common problem in scientific research) is because DMSO is no longer being used—particularly since I occasionally find studies where DMSO alone, rather than simply being the control, is also tested against saline, and in a significant number of those DMSO alone had a therapeutic effect.

Lastly, in writing this article, I have tried to condense thousands of pertinent studies into something feasible for everyone to read, while also ensuring that this forgotten literature remains available to researchers and authors wishing to advance this work. In that, I made the decision to include the combination studies, both because they illustrate the common benefits DMSO provides with these agents across a vast swath of neurological conditions and because combination can often enhance the efficacy of DMSO (detailed extensively here), hence providing additional ideas for individuals struggling with the neurodegenerative diseases covered here. As such, anytime an agent with a therapeutic effect is mentioned in this article assume that it was combined with DMSO. Additionally, if that agent was a natural therapy (e.g., herb, nutraceutical or botanical extract), to help you, as mentioned before, I have marked it with a ^⬖.

Causes of Disease

When trying to understand a disease, two different lenses exist for interpreting it. One, the (favored) reductionist perspective tries to break it down to its tiniest parts, and through understanding them understand the disease. The other, the holistic one, sees the specific disease as a gear in a much larger system, and tries to see what systemic process is giving rise to the issues at hand.

Since Descartes’ seminal work on reasoning in 1637 (~400 years ago), our culture has embraced the reductionist model and through it, created countless scientific innovations which have transformed society, such as numerous medical innovations that identified the discrete cause of a life-threatening condition and provided a cure so it was no longer fatal.

Unfortunately, while reductionistic approaches are often excellent for acute life-threatening illnesses, they often only identify the downstream concrete effects of the illness rather than the upstream process which gave rise to the illness (hence making the therapies chosen typically be symptom managing ones rather than curative). Because of this, modern medicine is often characterized as being “excellent for emergencies but terrible for chronic illness.” Likewise, a longstanding joke with neurology is that neurologists are excellent at diagnosing neurological diseases, but not very good at actually treating them (although recently there has been some progress on the therapeutic end).

Note: alternatively, one can argue our biochemistry-focused form of medicine (which tries to identify a specific molecular target for each disease) exists because this allows an almost infinite number of patentable therapies to be made for each illness, whereas were systemic remedies to be utilized that could treat a myriad of illnesses (e.g., umbrella therapies or ones based on biophysics), it would no longer be possible to have a lucrative business model which patents each disease.

In contrast, I see many illnesses as being a manifestation of an underlying disease process within the body, and in many cases, believe the specific disease that arises is largely a product of where that disease process landed in the individual’s body (e.g., it was very common that COVID-19 vaccine injuries affected a previously weakened or injured area of the body, which is part of why the condition had so many different symptoms).

Unfortunately, while this perspective is often necessary to solve an illness, it is diametrically opposed not only to how our society teaches us to think, but also the human ego, as reductionist frameworks offer the comforting illusion of certainty and control, whereas holistic perspectives require us to tolerate ambiguity and unpredictability so we can see beyond the parts and grasp the broader whole—and unfortunately, the human ego will go to great lengths to feel like it is in control.

The Sequence of Disease

Over the years, I have noticed a recurring pattern that characterizes many of the diseases I encounter:

• Something shocks the system, or a recurring issue eventually affects the body to an extent which exceeds its compensatory capacity.

• The body (or a part of it) enters a state of shock and partially or fully shuts down.

• The natural healing capacity of the body is unable to resolve this shutdown, and the issue becomes chronic.

• The shutdown causes other things in the body connected to it to go haywire and creates additional issues.

Because of this, my approach frequently is to:

• First identify where the actual issue is and the underlying issue that precipitated it.

• Then treat the underlying issue which caused the problem.

• See if that resolves the shutdown, and if not provide a regenerative therapy which wakes the tissue back up (which I discussed extensively in the cell danger response series).

• For any problems that remain, treat the underlying issue which predisposed that area to being affected by the systemic process.

• See what issues remain in the other parts of the body which were connected to the core problem and deal with those.

Note: in other cases, the situation is much simpler and I just focus on a therapy for where the actual issue is.

Because of this framework, I’ve put a lot of thought into what creates the shocks that initially shut the system down (e.g., an infection, prolonged stress, poor sleep, significant injury or tissue compression) and tried to discern why some people’s bodies can quickly shrug off those insults and the damage they create, while in others they become lodged and quickly become permanent.

From this, I’ve gradually come to the perspective that circulation is key, and that once circulation shuts down, areas of the body not only become “shocked,” but the body loses its inherent ability to reassert a state of health following the shocks it encounters. As such, I see many diseases and disease processes (e.g., inflammation) not as independent entities, but rather as consequences of poor circulation (and likewise recognize that the underlying reason why many different disease processes create similar symptoms is because they all impair circulation).
Note: within many schools of natural healing, nutritional deficiencies are identified as a root cause of illness to be treated with sufficient supplementation. My own experience (mirrored in some studies) has been that those illnesses often also resolve when circulation is restored to the affected area. Put differently, while raising the nutrient levels in the blood that reaches the area could solve the issue, those nutrients could also be obtained in sufficient amounts by increasing the amount of blood which reaches the area.

My focus on circulation in part results from how often I see it quickly produce dramatic effects for patients, in part because of how often I now identify pertinent circulatory obstructions, and because the individuals who pioneered this perspective provided one of the most illuminating models of disease I’d come across. Briefly:

•Building on work that came before him, in the 1940s to 1960s, Melvin Knisely elucidated that “blood sludging” (blood cells clumping together) underlay many illnesses, particularly hospitalizing ones as this generally reduced blood flow and eliminated microcirculation in vessels the clumped blood cells were too large to fit through. Key discoveries included burns, blood infections like malaria and cancer causing significant blood sludging (which then systemically affected the body) a few therapies (e.g., low molecular weight dextran and hydroxychloroquine) alleviating sludging, and by using a microscope to view vessels in the eye, it was possible to non-invasively assess how “sludged” the blood throughout the body was (whereas while sludging could be assessed in blood taken out of the body with live blood cell analysis or the ESR rate, it was not as accurate because the clumping behavior of blood always changed once it left the body).

•In Chinese medicine, numerous “disease patterns” exist to explain what is causing a specific illness. One of these, “blood stasis” (which I still need to write an article on) perfectly matches blood sludging, and interestingly, after the mass adoption of the smallpox vaccine, blood stasis more and more came to be seen as the primary cause of most illness. Notably, many diagnostic signs have been developed by Chinese medicine for blood stasis which have significant value in identifying “blood sludging.”

•While Knisely could tell blood sludging was a core cause of illness and that specific things triggered it (e.g., excessive heat or cold), he could not determine why it occurred and postulated it might be due to a sticky coating on the cells (not found in normal blood) that was tentatively identified as a protein.

•In the 1960s, Thomas Riddick, an engineer and chemist who regularly worked with colloidal solutions to thicken or thin them (e.g., clays need to be thinned to flow through pipes while sewage needs to be thickened so its waste matter clumps together and settles to the bottom) concluded his heart issues (which at the time were “incurable”) might be due to his blood being “too thick” and tried using the same agents he used to disperse industrial colloids on his body—which worked. This led to him concluding the primary variable he adjusted, zeta potential (the electrical repulsion between colloidal particles which allows them to resist agglomerating forces in a liquid system pushing them together) might underlie many different diseases and was the factor responsible for the blood sludging observed by Knisely. As such, he extensively studied it (e.g., with microscopes aimed at the eyes that filtered the heat from his incandescent bulb so exposed blood would not begin to sludge) and amongst other things concluded aluminum was extremely dangerous because its strong positive charge made it the ion most capable of disrupting zeta potential, that people with poor zeta potential were at high risk of heart attacks, and that bacterial and viral infections would consistently worsen the zeta potential of the body (hence making them most severely afflict the elderly as zeta potential worsens with age).

•A doctor with an incurable heart condition discovered Riddick’s work, and after it fixed his heart issues, discovered that with his patients restoring zeta potential was miraculous for a few other diseases including dementia.

•Canadian neurologist Andrew Moulden realized that he frequently saw children develop clinical signs of strokes after vaccination, and that more severe signs correlated to developmental disability following vaccination (mirroring a century of published case reports of cranial nerve issues accompanying vaccine encephalitis and those same deficits later being routinely observed in autistic children). Moulden then concluded that vaccines were causing microstrokes throughout the body due to zeta potential-disrupting agents in vaccines (e.g., aluminum) clumping blood cells together and because during an inflammatory response, larger white blood cells will obstruct the microcirculation (all of which was too small to detect with radiologic imaging and is a major reason why diagnostic tests cannot identify many chronic neurological conditions). He also concluded that the characteristic microstrokes he saw resulted from them being in parts of the brain with weaker blood supplies, and they hence served as indicators brain damage was also silently occurring in other parts of the brain being affected by these microstrokes. Finally, like those before him, he highlighted this could be caused by other things like infections, but emphasized it was a far more frequent problem with vaccination.

•Numerous doctors (myself included) independently realized that this process likely affected every fluid in the body as they are all colloids, and that many of the conditions ascribed to blood sludging (e.g., Chinese medicine links blood stasis to autoimmunity) likely resulted from obstructions in other fluids like the lymphatics.

•In December 2019, based on reports on anonymous message boards online, I became very concerned COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) would turn into a global catastrophe (in part because of how it behaved, and in part because every authority downplayed it, whereas typically far more minor and relatively inconsequential pandemics would be hyped up to an absurd degree). As such, from the start, I corresponded with everyone I knew treating the disease, and quickly noticed it had some very odd characteristics suggesting significant zeta potential disruptions throughout the body. As colleagues who had treated SARS-CoV-1 did not notice those features of the disease, I hypothesized there was likely a protein on the outside of the virus which carried a very strong charge density not present in SARS-CoV-1, and after teaching myself how to do the analysis, realized the spike protein fit the bill.

As such, particularly after the vaccine hit the market, my interest in understanding zeta potential greatly increased and a key goal of this newsletter has been to empower people to treat zeta potential (which is essentially done by eliminating strong positive ions and supplementing with strong negative ions) as it transforms so many different areas of medicine and health.

Note: the zeta potential topic (along with supporting references) is discussed in much greater detail here.

However, I also must disclose I do not believe zeta potential is the only factor which causes blood sludging; rather I’ve focused on it because it is simply the easiest one to understand and rapidly treat (e.g., I believe there is a great deal we still do not understand how blood and fluids behave in the body—evidenced by things like forgotten Russian research which shows blood travels through the body in spiraling vortexes the heart directs so vascular resistance is reduced and specific types of blood can arrive where they are needed).

DMSO and Neurological Disorders

DMSO has many qualities which allow it to treat a wide variety of diseases including:

•It increasing circulation.
•It accelerating the healing of injured tissue (which I currently believe results from it improving circulation and it stabilizing the gels needed for the initial healing process).
•It awakening dormant cells that are trapped in the cell danger response.
•It being a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent.
•It increasing parasympathetic tone (due to it being an acetylcholine esterase inhibitor) and it sedating dysfunctional neural circuits (allowing them to reset).
•It effectively reducing pain (in part by it blocking pain transmission and it relaxing the musculature).
•It protecting cells and tissue from a wide variety of injurious and lethal stressors.
•It being a potent delivery system for other therapeutic substances that are mixed with it (particularly in topical applications).