An open letter to Dr Vinay Prasad
Love to chat with you about these issues.
Hi Vinay. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this article (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2802893?s=03).
As a holistic psychiatrist (practicing Ayurveda and Functional medicine), I am shaking my head! because, I (like many other healers in the holistic world) have been talking about this same issue not just for covid but for many other chronic diseases. It’s all about the state of the immune system (and other key systems) – whether it is in balance or not. So, yes, covid is not causing long haul. Neither is depression or neuroticism; causing long haul. It is more basic than that. It is the dysregulated immune system (and the gut, the HPA, etc) that results in end organ symptom manifestation for eg: Mitochondrial dysfunction leading to fatigue and brain fog of long covid – or – impaired neuronal communication via neurotransmitters and neuronal inflammation causing depression, neuroticism, etc. and, news flash! all this is reversible and people can heal from any such disease process using very few basic ingredients of life – food, air, water, movement, love, connection, meaning and purpose. This is it!
Your recent videos and articles are showing me that you are where I was about 10 years ago…recognizing that mainstream psychiatry (and medicine) was failing my patients and even harming them. Out of this deep dissatisfaction, came the awakening and understanding of holistic principles of health aided by my study of Ayurveda (yes, the very same ridiculed by you and ZDogg – btw, ditch the guy – he is deeply confused and refuses to address his cognitive dissonance). I would love to come on your show and chat with you about all this.
Here are my articles about covid and what we should be doing – many of them I wrote in 2020 and 2021. This first one was my understanding about what to actually do to rise above the pandemic – not that anyone was listening :). And of course, based on my philosophy and science, I started to treat covid patients with Ayurvedic herbals and functional medicine supplements and none of them needed to be hospitalized or ended up with long covid. My star ingredient was NAC as nebulizer which helped to clear the mucus from the lungs and addressed the cytokine storm issue that was creating wet lungs. and, for everyone of them, I had to first manage their fear – a fear psychosis induced by the powers that be.
Staying Healthy in the Age of the Corona
In this article, I predicted the oncoming mental health issues especially in children – no brainer, right? Our brains develop in the context of inter-personal reciprocal loving interaction with the world. And pandemic policies robbed this birth right from a generation of children.
The “Pandemic” No One is Preparing for…(Except for Us at Trinergy Health)…
In this next article, I give a framework of how to heal from long haul (which I offer in my clinic along with reversing autoimmune diseases) while mainstream media kept up with its fear psychosis.
COVID-19: The Functional Medicine Solution for “Long Haulers”
Here’s another article wherein I talk about the actual underlying causes of the adverse outcomes we saw in the US.
I hope you will go through these articles so we can have a robust discussion. Also, I suggest that you read this book: “Ayurveda and Panchakarma” by Dr Sunil Joshi. Amazing little book that explains the science and philosophy of Ayurveda. In your VPZD show, episode 29, both of you were ridiculing this ancient science and it was disheartening to see reasonable men, educated in the field of science to be dismissive of something they have no knowledge of.
and btw, frontline doctors like me will always attempt to help their patients and not wait for DBRCT’s to bless our interventions :). I really do not understand this statement in your substack: “4. Randomized trials testing interventions— including counseling— are needed for people who suffer greatly from long covid. No intervention should be deployed outside of trials.” and btw: are we not a society that is already over-therapitized (my word). Counseling cannot help when the brain and body are not able to do their physiological functions. You cannot teach a hungry child math and you cannot treat a “hangry” man or woman’s pain with therapy. I am not against therapy or counseling. I am only suggesting the order of the interventions – heal the body first and then the mind will follow suit.
Let me also say this: I am very aware of your transformation over the last 3 years. In fact, I am very glad to see it. A word of warning – there will first be the pain of disillusionment with modern medicine – the cabal of big medicine, big hospital, big insurance and big pharma.
My last question to you: when sensible, down to earth, probably less educated citizens (you know the ones in deep connection to mother earth and nature, you know the so called “deplorables”, the right wingers) can understand and have the wisdom about health and disease which has now been shown to be more right than wrong (from masking to natural immunity to covid vaccine refusal); while ivory tower scientists are largely responsible for the debacle of covid policies; do we really need studies like these to state the obvious. Have we as a population lost our innate intelligence and wisdom to such an extent?