Peter A. McCullough MD

Dr. Peter A. McCullough is an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist managing the cardiovascular complications of both the viral infection and the injuries developing after the COVID-19 vaccine in Dallas TX, USA.

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Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality

The word “vaccine” derives from the Latin word for cow. The English physician, Edward Jenner, coined it in his 1798 pamphlet An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae. The last two Latin words mean “Smallpox of the Cow,” or cowpox. Jenner postulated that cowpox causes mild disease in humans while protecting them from the more dangerous smallpox. His proposal for inoculation with a weak form of disease-causing matter to prevent serious illness became the central concept of infectious disease medicine and has remained so ever since. The word “vaccine” was subsequently applied to immunizations against all infectious diseases. Its etymology is amazingly apt, because vaccines are the ultimate sacred cow.

Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality tells the story of this technology and the celebrated men who developed it with some success, but also with failures that are never mentioned in the celebratory literature on vaccines. Vaccine advocates often proclaim that they “follow the science,” but most vaccine development has been a matter of guesses, gambles, and wild experimentation. Its key figures have been biased by religious faith, wishful thinking, ideology, and a desire for recognition and money.

Though credit is due to some vaccines for reducing infectious disease morbidity and mortality, their contribution to public health in developed nations has been grossly exaggerated by propagandists. Dramatic improvements in nutrition and sanitation were the primary drivers of this trend. The authors do not dismiss the concept of vaccination but seek to promote a more informed and less dogmatic discussion about its risks and benefits. Critical evaluation can only make the technology safer and more effective.

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The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex

LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK! Chapter 14: ACCORDING TO MY ABILITY AND JUDGEMENT

When is this nightmare going to end? he wondered. President Trump spoke of reaching the other side by Easter, which fell on April 12. That day arrived with warm sunny weather in Dallas but no end in sight. A couple of days later McCullough was informed that a staff member at Presbyterian Village had come down with Covid, but that she’d had no contact with his father. Then his mother called to say that his dad’s spring allergies were flaring up, as he sounded congested on the phone. Then he got the call that his dad had tested positive for Covid.

By then McCullough knew that isolating the disoriented man from his wife hadn’t protected him because he was still exposed to nursing home staff. While his wife had little contact with anyone, staff members had close contact with innumerable persons in multiple facilities every day. So now his father—an octogenarian suffering from a multi-fractured pelvis and senile dementia—had symptomatic COVID-19.

McCullough’s mother informed the facility’s administrators that her husband had long ago signed a directive stating that he never wanted to be kept alive by artificial life support. This meant that, in the event of acute respiratory distress, sending him to the hospital to be put on a ventilator was out of the question. Considering this, the facility made way for a Covid unit on the top floor of its Corrigan Administrative building, and Thomas McCullough was their first patient.

How to save his father’s life? Disabled by the pelvic fracture, he spent most of the time on his back, which reduced his respiratory mechanical function. Judging by the mortality data out of China and Milan for a patient his age, with his health problems (include diabetes) his chances of survival were less than 50% and probably around 20%. McCullough knew that his newly acquired knowledge was only fragmentary and fraught with uncertainty. In accordance with my ability and judgement. He would just have to do the best he could.

By a stroke of luck, the doctor’s assistant assigned to look after his father was open to taking directions from McCullough.

“The weather is beautiful, so the first thing we do is open all the windows to get fresh air into the room to reduce the inoculum,” he told her. The doctor’s assistant was game to do this.

“Secondly, let’s put him on a twice daily dose of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, plus aspirin and lovenox.”

In the days that followed, McCullough’s father got very sick and lost his appetite. Dehydration set in, and his blood pressure dropped. They tried to administer IV fluids, but his veins had retracted too much to place the needle. And so, McCullough instructed the staff to perform the pediatric method of sticking the needle into the abdominal fat. They later succeeded in drawing a vial of blood and saw that his serum sodium level was 151 milliequivalents per liter, which meant he was catastrophically dehydrated. Finally, they succeeded in getting enough fluids in him, and kept him on the medications for thirty days. He lost forty-two pounds, but he pulled through. Through the illness, the nurses noted that all he wanted was protein shakes. This turned out to be a wise choice for a diabetic, for as would soon be discovered, severe disease strongly correlated with high blood sugar.

There’s an archetypal myth at least as old as the ancient Egyptian god Horace, who retrieved his father from the underworld. For the child, the father represents order and security. The passage from childhood innocence to full adult awareness is expressed as venturing into an extremely dark place to rescue one’s father. This involves being shorn of all comforting illusions and security and facing the full horror of our mortal existence. At the age of fifty-seven, McCullough had seen and learned a lot. He’d completed vast medical training, gotten married, fathered two children, and held leadership positions in major hospitals.

And yet, he’d always lived in a structured environment governed by well-established procedures. Most aspects of his life had seemed settled on the assumption he would finish his career at Baylor and enjoy a comfortable retirement. Within this powerful institution, he held a ranking position that gave him high social status and generous remuneration and health benefits. His professorship at its affiliated medical school provided him with additional authority and prestige. As most of his colleagues could attest, reaching such a position was the culmination of decades of study and work.

Undertaking the task of treating his father for the novel disease required going far beyond the familiar routines and procedures of his institution. The anguish of seeing his old dad laid low, and the victory of bringing him back from death’s threshold, was a trial from which he emerged with an expanded sense of himself and his responsibility. It prepared him to play a role in human affairs far beyond that of a conventional doctor. He could not and did not sit back and let the virus slaughter his father, and he wasn’t about to let that happen to his patients or those across the globe. COVID-19 was a treatable illness,