The Gary Null Show - 12.08.21

Grape seed extract found to extend lifespan of old mice

Chinese Academy of Sciences and Mayo Clinic, December 7, 2021

A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in China and the U.S. has found that injecting procyanidin C1 (PCC1), a chemical found in grape seed extract, into older mice extended their lifespan. In their paper published in the journal Nature Metabolism, the group describes the link between PCC1 and extended lifespan in mice and the experiments they carried out with the material. The researchers screened 46 plant extracts looking for anti-aging capabilities. They came across PCC1. Initial tests during screening showed it reduced the number of senescent cells in the human prostate. Such cells are known to contribute to aging. Intrigued with their results, the researchers tested it further. They found that at low doses it prevented senescent cells from contributing to inflammation, and at higher doses killed them outright without harming other cells.

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Gratitude may improve your health

University of Michigan and University of California, San Francisco, December 6, 2021

Be thankful for what you have—it might improve your physical and mental health, according to a new global study that uses cell phone data. People who were more grateful had lower blood pressure and heart rate, as well as greater feelings of appreciation toward others. The study found that optimism was also linked to health and mental benefits, such as better sleep quality and more positive expectations and reflections. The findings showed that gratitude and optimism are positive psychological dispositions associated with beneficial outcomes. Gratitude highlighted the positive aspects of the day, whereas optimism minimized the negative aspects of the day, the study indicated. In addition, optimism was a better predictor of sleep quality and stress frequency and intensity than gratitude.

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Higher physical activity is associated with a better metabolic health risk factor profile in menopausal women

University of Jyvaskyla (Finland), November 29, 2021 A study conducted at the University of Jyväskylä shows that menopausal transition is associated with unfavourable changes in metabolic health that may be mitigated with a physically active lifestyle. Especially, physical activity alleviated the increase in systolic blood pressure. In the study, the women were divided into three groups based on the change in their menopausal status during the follow-up period and the groups were compared to each other. Body composition, waist circumference, blood pressure, blood lipids and glucose and physical activity were measured twice during the four-year follow-up time. In all groups, the levels of several metabolic health indicators deteriorated.

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Could glucosamine and chondroitin support a healthy colon?

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, December 6, 2021 Use of the supplements, which are used for joint health support, was associated with a 23% reduction in the risk of colorectal cancer, according to data from the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study published in the International Journal of Cancer . “Results of this study suggest a potential beneficial effect of glucosamine and chondroitin supplementation on risk of colorectal cancer, and further support the previously observed association between use of these supplements and risk of colorectal cancer in the VITAL study,” wrote the researchers. “Additional study is needed to better understand the association between use of glucosamine and chondroitin and risk of colorectal cancer, and the mechanisms by which these supplements may affect risk of colorectal cancer.”

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Cannabis impacts sperm counts, motility in two generations of mice

Washington State University, December 2, 2021 An intense but short-term exposure to cannabis vapor lowered sperm counts and slowed sperm movement, or motility, not only in the directly exposed male mice but also in their sons. The Washington State University study, published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, builds on other human and animal studies, showing that cannabis can impede male reproductive function. The current study uses more controlled circumstances than human studies, which often have to rely on surveys, and is the first known reproductive study to use vaporized whole cannabis in mice, which is the more common form humans use.

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Study suggests giving kids too many toys stifles their creativity

University of Toledo, December 6, 2021 A team of researchers at the University of Toledo has found that children are more creative when they have fewer toys to play with at one time. In their paper published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development, the group describes their observational study of toddlers at play, what they learned and offer some suggestions for parents. The researchers found that the toddlers playing with four toys engaged in more creative activities than did the toddlers who had 16 toys to choose from. They also found, unsurprisingly, that toddlers with fewer options tended to play with each of the toys available to them for a longer amount of time. Much of that additional time, the researchers noted, was taken up with finding news ways to play with them.

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Rap Sheets for Pfizer and J&J

PFIZER Rejected the government for distributing the vaccine… will do it itself CEO Albert Bouria – before reining the closing bell at stock exchange.. stated that those who do not vaccinated will be the weak links in stopping the pandemic Pfizer – second largest drug/biotech co in world – 4th highest earner in vaccines Product safety – it is heart valves were defected and caused a hundred deaths – investigation found company intentionally misled regulators knowing about hazards Celebrex.. in wake of vioxx – painkiller.. admitted in its trials the drug increased heart problems.  Settled 894 million – for Celebrex and Bextra (painkiller that causes cardio and GI risks) More recent – 1000 lawsuits or birth defects associated with its drug Zolof… Price fixing – as far back as 1950s with antibiotics. Such as tetracycline Price fixing over the years… AIDS drug, Lipitor (cholesterol drug) In 2016 the Justice Department announced that Pfizer would pay $784 million to settle allegations that it underpaid rebates to Medicaid on two of its drugs. 20 million paid to 4500 doctors for speaking on behalf of its drugs Busted for false Centrum claims for breast and colon health Racketeering fraud over Neurtonin – epilepsy drug Bribery – payments to foreign government officials.. and  bribing overseas doctors to increase foreign sales Selling off label Kickbacks from medicare Tax avoidance – using paper work to “relocate” to Ireland , tax haven Repeatedly paid fines for environmental violations at its research and manufacturing plants. In 2009 - dubious distinction of paying the largest-ever criminal fine at the time — $2.3 billion — for fraudulent and illegal promotion of four drugs, including a painkiller marketed at “dangerously high” doses. In 2016, a British regulator levied a $106 million fine against Pfizer for a 2600% increase in the price of a widely prescribed anti-epilepsy drug that increased the National Health Services’ expenditures from one year to the next — for a single drug—from $2.5 million to $63 million. Pfizer is the top drug company spender in state elections, even outspending the industry’s own lobbying group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRM). In 2014 Pfizer launched an effort to take over AstraZeneca that was designed not only to swallow a competitor but also to cut its tax bill by locating the headquarters of the combined operation in Britain. When AstraZeneca resisted the controversial move, Pfizer abandoned the bid. Then in November 2015 Pfizer announced a similar deal, worth $160 billion, to merge with Allergan and move the headquarters of the combined company to Ireland. The plan was dropped when the Obama Administration introduced new tax rules. JOHNSON AND JOHNSON In 2004 J&J agreed to pay up to $90 million to settle lawsuits linking the prescription heartburn medication Propulsid to several hundred deaths and many more cases of cardiac irregularity. During 2009 and 2010 the company had to announce a string of recalls of medications, contact lenses and hip implants. The most serious of these was the massive recall of more than 136 million bottles of liquid Tylenol and Motrin for infants and children after batches of the medications were found to be contaminated with metal particles. The company's handling of the matter was so poor that J&J subsidiary McNeil-PPC became the subject of a criminal investigation and later entered a guilty plea and paid a criminal fine of $20 million and forfeited $5 million. It also came out during a Congressional investigation of the matter that in 2008 J&J had engaged in what was labeled a "phantom recall." When faced with Motrin IB caplets that were not dissolving property, McNeil hired contractors to buy up the products in stores while making no announcement to the public. In 2013 J&J reached a deal with plaintiffs lawyers under which it would pay nearly $2.5 billion in compensation to an estimated 8,000 people who had received flawed hip implants. In 2016 two juries awarded a total of $127 million damages to women who sued J&J claiming that their ovarian cancer was caused by the talc in J&J Baby Powder. An award of $417 million was made by a California jury in 2017 and a verdict of more than $4 billion was awarded in Missouri in 2018 (an appeal court later reduced that to $2.1 billion). The New York Times reported in December 2018 that internal company memos from the 1970s discussed the possibility that its talcum powder could contain asbestos. In 1996 J&J reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission under which the company agreed to stop making what the agency called false claims about the failure rates of condoms in the marketing of its K-Y spermicidal lubricant. In 2010 J&J subsidiaries Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical and Ortho-McNeil-Janssen had to pay $81 million to settle charges that they promoted the epilepsy drug Topamax for uses not approved as safe by the Food and Drug Administration The following year, J&J subsidiary Scios Inc. had to pay $85 million to settle similar charges relating to its heart failure drug Natrecor. In 2013 the Justice Department announced that J&J and several of its subsidiaries would pay more than $2.2 billion in criminal fines and civil settlements to resolve allegations that the company had marketed its anti-psychotic medication Risperdal and other drugs for unapproved uses as well as allegations that they had paid kickbacks to physicians and pharmacists to encourage off-label usage In a related Risperdal civil lawsuit, a jury later awarded $8 billion in damages but a Philadelphia judge reduced that by more than 99 percent to $6.8 million. In 2019 J&J and its subsidiary Ethicon, Inc. agreed to pay over $116 million to 41 states and the District of Columbia to settle litigation alleging deceptive marketing of transvaginal surgical mesh devices. In a separate suit brought by California, a state judge ordered the company to pay $344 million. In 2021 J&J reached an agreement with a group of states under which it would pay $5 billion to resolve litigation brought against its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals alleging improper sale of pain medications, contributing to the national opioid epidemic. In 2001 J&J agreed to pay up to $860 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company had misled consumers into prematurely throwing away disposable Acuvue contact lenses. The suits argued that the company drove up sales of its 1-Day Acuvue soft lenses by recommending that consumers use them only once, even though the product was identical to regular Acuvue lenses, which could be worn as long as two weeks. In 2011 J&J agreed to pay a $21.4 million criminal penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department resolving allegations of improper payments by J&J subsidiaries to government officials in Greece, Poland and Romania in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

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Weapons trade booms as profits hit record $531bn in 2020

Swedish think tank says world’s 100 biggest arms firms were largely shielded from the effect of the pandemic. AL JAZEERA. 6 Dec 2021 Sales of weapons and military services by the world’s 100 biggest arms companies reached a record $531bn in 2020, an increase of 1.3 per cent in real terms compared with the previous year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The Swedish think tank said 2020 marked the sixth consecutive year of sales growth by the top 100 firms, and came even as the global economy shrank. Overall sales were 17 percent higher than in 2015 when it first included data on Chinese firms. “The industry giants were largely shielded by sustained government demand for military goods and services,” Alexandra Marksteiner, researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme, said in a statement on Monday. “In much of the world, military spending grew and some governments even accelerated payments to the arms industry in order to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.” Firms in the United States continue to dominate the industry, with total sales of $285bn from 41 companies accounting for about 54 percent of all arms sales among the 100 biggest companies. The top five companies in the ranking since 2018 have all been based in the US, SIPRI said. Arms sales from the top Chinese firms amounted to an estimated $66.8bn in 2020, 1.5 percent more than in 2019. Chinese firms accounted for 13 percent of the Top 100 arms sales’ total, ahead of the United Kingdom, which had the third-largest share. “In recent years, Chinese arms companies have benefited from the country’s military modernization programmes and focus on military-civil fusion,” said Nan Tian, SIPRI senior researcher. “They have become some of the most advanced military technology producers in the world.” The seven UK companies recorded arms sales of $37.5bn in 2020, up by 6.2 percent compared with 2019. Arms sales by BAE Systems – the sole European firm in the top 10 – increased by 6.6 percent to $24bn.

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You'd Better Watch Out: The Surveillance State Has a Naughty List, and You’re On It

John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead, December 7, 2021 No longer does the all-knowing, all-seeing, jolly Old St. Nick need to rely on antiquated elves on shelves and other seasonal snitches in order to know when you’re sleeping or awake, and if you’ve been naughty or nice. Thanks to the government’s almost limitless powers made possible by a domestic army of techno-tyrants, fusion centers and Peeping Toms, Santa can get real-time reports on who’s been good or bad this year. This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted—makes the NSA’s rudimentary phone and metadata surveillance appear almost antiquated in comparison. Tracking you based on your health status. In the age of COVID-19, digital health passports are gaining traction as gatekeepers of a sort, restricting access to travel, entertainment, etc., based on one’s vaccine status. Whether or not one has a vaccine passport, however, individuals may still have to prove themselves “healthy” enough to be part of society. For instance, in the wake of Supreme Court rulings that paved the way for police to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes,” government agencies are preparing to use virus-detecting canine squads to carry out mass screenings to detect individuals who may have COVID-19. Researchers claim the COVID-sniffing dogs have a 95% success rate of identifying individuals with the virus (except when they’re hungry, tired or distracted). These dogs are also being to trained to ferret out individuals suffering from other health ailments such as cancer. Tracking you based on your face: Facial recognition software aims to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. Coupled with surveillance cameras that blanket the country, facial recognition technology allows the government and its corporate partners to identify and track someone’s movements in real-time. One particularly controversial software program created by Clearview AI has been used by police, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to collect photos on social media sitesfor inclusion in a massive facial recognition database. Similarly, biometric software, which relies on one’s unique identifiers (fingerprints, irises, voice prints), is becoming the standard for navigating security lines, as well as bypassing digital locks and gaining access to phones, computers, office buildings, etc. In fact, greater numbers of travelers are opting into programs that rely on their biometrics in order to avoid long waits at airport security. Scientists are also developing lasers that can identify and surveil individuals based on their heartbeats, scent and microbiome. Tracking you based on your behavior: Rapid advances in behavioral surveillance are not only making it possible for individuals to be monitored and tracked based on their patterns of movement or behavior, including gait recognition (the way one walks), but have given rise to whole industries that revolve around predicting one’s behavior based on data and surveillance patterns and are also shaping the behaviors of whole populations. One smart “anti-riot” surveillance system purports to predict mass riots and unauthorized public events by using artificial intelligence to analyze social media, news sources, surveillance video feeds and public transportation data. Tracking you based on your spending and consumer activities: With every smartphone we buy, every GPS device we install, every Twitter, Facebook, and Google account we open, every frequent buyer card we use for purchases—whether at the grocer’s, the yogurt shop, the airlines or the department store—and every credit and debit card we use to pay for our transactions, we’re helping Corporate America build a dossier for its government counterparts on who we know, what we think, how we spend our money, and how we spend our time. Consumer surveillance, by which your activities and data in the physical and online realms are tracked and shared with advertisers, has become big business, a $300 billion industry that routinely harvests your data for profit. Corporations such as Target have not only been tracking and assessing the behavior of their customers, particularly their purchasing patterns, for years, but the retailer has also funded major surveillance in cities across the country and developed behavioral surveillance algorithms that can determine whether someone’s mannerisms might fit the profile of a thief. Tracking you based on your public activities: Private corporations in conjunction with police agencies throughout the country have created a web of surveillance that encompasses all major cities in order to monitor large groups of people seamlessly, as in the case of protests and rallies. They are also engaging in extensive online surveillance, looking for any hints of “large public events, social unrest, gang communications, and criminally predicated individuals.” Defense contractors have been at the forefront of this lucrative market. Fusion centers, $330 million-a-year, information-sharing hubs for federal, state and law enforcement agencies, monitor and report such “suspicious” behavior as people buying pallets of bottled water, photographing government buildings, and applying for a pilot’s license as “suspicious activity.” Tracking you based on your social media activities: Every move you make, especially on social media, is monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to form a picture of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line. As The Intercept reported, the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are increasingly investing in and relying on corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior. This obsession with social media as a form of surveillance will have some frightening consequences in coming years. As Helen A.S. Popkin, writing for NBC News, observed, “We may very well face a future where algorithms bust people en masse for referencing illegal ‘Game of Thrones’ downloads… the new software has the potential to roll, Terminator-style, targeting every social media user with a shameful confession or questionable sense of humor.” Tracking you based on your phone and online activities: Cell phones have become de facto snitches, offering up a steady stream of digital location data on users’ movements and travels. Police have used cell-site simulators to carry out mass surveillance of protests without the need for a warrant. Moreover, federal agents can now employ a number of hacking methods in order to gain access to your computer activities and “see” whatever you’re seeing on your monitor. Malicious hacking software can also be used to remotely activate cameras and microphones, offering another means of glimpsing into the personal business of a target. Tracking you based on your social network: Not content to merely spy on individuals through their online activity, government agencies are now using surveillance technology to track one’s social network, the people you might connect with by phone, text message, email or through social message, in order to ferret out possible criminals. An FBI document obtained by Rolling Stone speaks to the ease with which agents are able to access address book data from Facebook’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage services from the accounts of targeted individuals and individuals not under investigation who might have a targeted individual within their network. What this creates is a “guilt by association” society in which we are all as guilty as the most culpable person in our address book. Tracking you based on your car: License plate readers are mass surveillance tools that can photograph over 1,800 license tag numbers per minute, take a picture of every passing license tag number and store the tag number and the date, time, and location of the picture in a searchable database, then share the data with law enforcement, fusion centers and private companies to track the movements of persons in their cars. With tens of thousands of these license plate readers now in operation throughout the country, affixed to overpasses, cop cars and throughout business sectors and residential neighborhoods, it allows police to track vehicles and run the plates through law enforcement databases for abducted children, stolen cars, missing people and wanted fugitives. Of course, the technology is not infallible: there have been numerous incidents in which police have mistakenly relied on license plate data to capture out suspects only to end up detaining innocent people at gunpoint. Tracking you based on your mail: Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service, which has been photographing the exterior of every piece of paper mail for the past 20 years, is also spying on Americans’ texts, emails and social media posts. Headed up by the Postal Service’s law enforcement division, the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) is reportedly using facial recognition technology, combined with fake online identities, to ferret out potential troublemakers with “inflammatory” posts. The agency claims the online surveillance, which falls outside its conventional job scope of processing and delivering paper mail, is necessary to help postal workers avoid “potentially volatile situations.” Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Contact tracing apps. What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears. Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother. Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by a vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops. In an age of overcriminalization, mass surveillance, and an appalling lack of protections for our privacy rights, we can all be considered guilty of some transgression or other. So you’d better watch out—you’d better not pout—you’d better not cry—‘cos I’m telling you why: this Christmas, it’s the Surveillance State that’s coming to town, and you’re already on its naughty list.

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Vitamin D: Government Should Have Promoted to Combat Pandemic

Joel S. Hirschhorn, December 06, 2021 There seems to be an endless refusal by the public health establishment to fight the pandemic with the best science-based tools.  Instead, they keep pushing vaccines. Great German research provides unequivocal medical evidence that the government should be strongly advocating two actions: 1. Take vitamin D supplements and 2. Have your blood tested for vitamin D. The title for this October 2021 journal article says it all: “COVID-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status, and a Mortality Rate Close to Zero Could Theoretically Be Achieved at 50 ng/mL 25(OH)D3: Results of a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.”  [25(OH)D3 refers to metabolite of the vitamin in blood] In other words, there is clear evidence that the lower your vitamin D level the greater your risk of dying from COVID infection.  Moreover, the data clearly show that you need a blood level of at least 50 ng/mL. Odds are, however, that very, very few people have been tested for their vitamin D level.  This is a situation where waiting for testing is not the prudent approach.  Vitamin D pills are pretty cheap and it is perfectly safe to take a healthy daily dose to maintain a good immune system.  I take 4,000 IUs twice daily. Here are a number of highlights from this research and other sources; the discussion is aimed at informing people with information not provided by Big Media, Big Government and Big Pharma. Vitamin D is an accurate predictor of COVID infection.  Its deficiency is just as significant, and perhaps more so, than more commonly discussed underlying medical conditions, including obesity. To be clear, there is a level of vitamin D for an effective strategy at the personal and population level to prevent or mitigate new surges and outbreaks of COVID that are related to reduced vaccine effectiveness and new variants. In the German study, fifteen other studies were cited that showed low vitamin D levels were related to cases of severe COVID infection, and seven studies that found positive results from treating ill patients with the vitamin. The German study noted: “The finding that most SARS-CoV-2 patients admitted to hospitals have vitamin D3 blood levels that are too low is unquestioned even by opponents of vitamin D supplementation.” The German study “followed 1,601 hospitalized patients, 784 who had their vitamin D levels measured within a day after admission and 817 whose vitamin D levels were known before infection.  And the researchers also analyzed the long-term average vitamin D3 levels documented for 19 countries.  The observed median vitamin D value over all collected study cohorts was 23.2 ng/mL, which is clearly too low to work effectively against COVID.” Why does this vitamin work so well?  The German study explained: A main cause of a severe reaction from COVID results from a “cytokine storm.” This refers to the body’s immune system releasing too many toxic cytokines as part of the inflammatory response to the virus.  Vitamin D is a main regulator of those cells.  A low level of the vitamin means a greater risk for a cytokine storm.  This is especially pertinent for lung problems from COVID. Other studies On a par with the German study was an important US medical article from May 2021: Vitamin D and Its Potential Benefit for the COVID-19 Pandemic.  It noted: “Experimental studies have shown that vitamin D exerts several actions that are thought to be protective against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infectivity and severity.  … There are a growing number of data connecting COVID-19 infectivity and severity with vitamin D status, suggesting a potential benefit of vitamin D supplementation for primary prevention or as an adjunctive treatment of COVID-19.  … there is no downside to increasing vitamin D intake and having sensible sunlight exposure to maintain serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D at a level of least 30 ng/mL and preferably 40 to 60 ng/mL to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection and its severity.” This confirms the German study and its finding of a critical vitamin level of 50 ng/mL. Daniel Horowitz has made this correct observation about vitamin D supplementation: “An endless stream of academic research demonstrates that not only would such an approach have worked much better than the vaccines, but rather than coming with sundry known and unknown negative side effects.“ There are now 142 studies vouching for the near-perfect correlation between higher vitamin D levels and better outcomes in COVID patients. From Israel came work that showed 25% of hospitalized COVID patients with vitamin D deficiency died compared to just 3% among those without a deficiency.  And those with a deficiency were 14 times more likely to end up with a severe or critical condition. Also from Israel, data on 1,176 patients with COVID infection admitted to the Galilee Medical Center, 253 had vitamin D levels on record and half were vitamin D-deficient.  This was the conclusion: “Among hospitalized COVID-19 patients, pre-infection deficiency of vitamin D was associated with increased disease severity and mortality.” Several studies have come from the University of Chicago.  One found that a vitamin D deficiency (less than 20 ng/ml) may raise the risk of testing positive for COVID-19, actually a 7.2% chance of testing positive for the virus.  And that more than 80% of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 were vitamin D deficient.  And Black individuals who had levels of 30 to 40 ng/ml had a 2.64 times higher risk of testing positive for COVID-19 than people with levels of 40 ng/ml or greater. On the good news side is a new study from Turkish researchers.  They focused on getting people’s levels over 30 ng/mL with supplements.  At that level there was success compared to people without supplementation.  This was true even if they had comorbidities.  They were able to achieve that blood level within two weeks.  Those with no comorbidities and no vitamin D treatment had 1.9-fold increased risk of having hospitalization longer than 8 days compared with cases with both comorbidities and vitamin D treatment.

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The explosion of Covid PTSD cases is a mental health crisis in the making

The Guardian, 7 Dec 2021 When the Covid-19 pandemic began, people working in the trauma field knew the psychological toll would be colossal. In the spring of 2020, I began interviewing professionals about the mental health fallout of the pandemic, specifically its impact on frontline medical staff. During the first wave, two in every five intensive care staff in England reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. That work continued for almost a year, during which time a second wave hit and the initial traumas were exacerbated. But it wasn’t only frontline workers who were experiencing trauma symptoms: Covid has posed perhaps the biggest threat to mental health in England since the second world war. Now, at the tail end of 2021, the pandemic is still not over. The NHS forecasts that nationally, there will be 230,000 new cases of PTSD as a result of Covid-19. It is not only social care and medical staff who will be affected. Those who lost loved ones, and those who have been very ill or hospitalised (35% of Covid-19 patients who were put on a ventilator go on to experience extensive symptoms of PTSD) may also suffer. Then there are those living with the effects of domestic and sexual abuse, which may have worsened due to lockdown, and children and young people whose lives changed immeasurably due to our shift to a state of emergency. I imagine that some women whose birthing experiences were marked by the pandemic will also be experiencing symptoms. The explosion of post-traumatic stress disorder is a medical emergency, and a further strain on our creaking services. Without proper action and investment, it is a national mental health crisis in the making.