THE covert SPOILS OF COVID

  CNBC: Happy, wealthy MailChimp founder

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The Covert Spoils of COVID

(Try to say that three times quickly)

There is no end to the benefits ... for some people.

I'll bet you're wondering why the owner of MailChimp (top of page) is laughing. Read on and you'll see.
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CambridgeBrainSciences: Participate in the COVID-19 Brain Study—a global study of how the virus affects cognition
.  COVID-19 may have direct and indirect effects on the brain. If you have been diagnosed with COVID-19, help world-renowned neuroscientists discover its effects on cognition by signing up for this important global study.

NatPost: 'This is going to produce cognitive deficits': Famed neuroscientist Adrian Owen launches COVID-19 brain study

• Using questionnaires and pop down menus, Owen and his collaborators will collect information, “completely anonymized and secure,” asking participants about their medical history, any underlying heart, lung or other health issues, the extent of their COVID-19 diagnosis and what happened to them.
• They’ll be asked to perform cognitive games that assess memory, decision-making, planning and problem solving, and results will be compared against a huge database of millions of tests completed by a healthy, normal population.

Look at the guy; he's as happy as Bill Gates and Mr. Mailchimp (above) - but his name is "Adrian", like the leading Satan worshipper in the movie Rosemary's Baby. (shiver)

So, they've already decided that the COVID-19 bug causes brain damage and they're going to prove it, and make money doing it (being already famous and "renowned" in some quarters).

This is interesting:

• The virus might also invade the brain by several routes, the review article found, including via the olfactory nerve, which might explain why people with COVID-19 so frequently report loss of taste and smell.

It gets worse -- or better -- depending on your faith levels:

• “I do most of my work with ICU clinicians, and they’ll often tell you, no one leaves the ICU in good shape, cognitively,” Owen said.

Well, I may as well quit right now, because I spent some time in ICU in the 60's for an operation it turned out I didn't need at all. Clearly I'm cognition challenged. But wait a sec, I'm smelling a rat right now and that rat smells money.

I've also been told I have good taste, so there.

So did Adrian just blow his whole premise? Is he saying that it's actually having been in ICU that causes the cog problems?  So shouldn't he be testing all the people who've ever been treated in ICU regardless of why they landed there? Perhaps because of all the drugs that were pumped into them?

Am I asking too many questions?  Can't help it. This whole project is smelly.

But, hey, if you've had COVID and want to sign up, here's the portal.  And here's the ever-so-friendly information page (just select your language and you're in).

It's all going to be done by email.  No scientist will ever see your face (or your brain), nor will you see theirs, if you're very, very lucky.

Now get this: Any information you provide to these renowned snoopers into your privacy will be stored on Mailchimp. (See Item #4 on the info page)

YIKES!

LuxSci: Is Mailchimp HIPAA Compliant?

• Sadly, the answer will disappoint most of those in the healthcare sector, as well as other businesses that deal with electronic protected health information (ePHI). Mailchimp is not HIPAA-compliant. What is HIPAA?

InfoSecurityMag: 2018 - Mailchimp Found Leaking Email Addresses

In short, Mailchimp is iffy.

CNBC: Billion dollar company Mailchimp started as a side gig – here's what the founder would do now to make extra money

• “I’ve always liked the idea of selling pickaxes to gold miners.”

Now, back to Adrian:

• "People who spend time on ventilators generally experience cognitive deficits, the result of uneven delivery of oxygen to the brain ..."

And that, again, is not the result of COVID; it's the result of misguided treatment of COVID, It's been pretty well-established that ventilators have done more harm than good..

So, then, shouldn't they be testing all people who have been placed on ventilators for whatever reason?

In Adrian's own words:

• “You cannot tackle any problem to do with the brain unless you fully understand it.”

One would assume so, wouldn't one. Yet ... the more one reads, the curiouser the whole scheme appears.  Maybe these researchers need to get tested themselves for cog probs?

There's at least one other person, a commenter on the NatPost article, who asks similar questions:

Eric Thiessen:

• I am uncertain why this project would be going forward (and I would also wonder who is funding it!). There are some significant potential issues with the methodology.
• For example: since covid does not hit all groups in society the same, will the control database be filtered to match?; is the control database current or are its results from earlier decades? (we know attention spans and the processing of information has changed brain pathways); will the tests administered to the test group be the same tests are used by the control database?; will there be some sort of weighted variable to indicate time spent in ICU, and further, time elapsed since ICU (recovery takes time and many forms).
• Add to this the admirable goal of large numbers for the group test, but 50,000 participants would be more than half of all Canadian covid survivors. If privacy laws are upheld, these test subjects will simply have to present themselves. This seems unlikely to happen.
• Finally, regardless of the outcomes, what will be done? There are not a lot of treatments for cognitive problems now. If there were, old age dementia would be more treatable presumably. This will not be different in one year.

Jordan Peterson is back from drug rehab, and he's written a very long article in his typical rapid-fire fashion, basically saying that universities don't want professors who buck the system. They'll get research grants only if they follow the party line.

NatPost: Jordan Peterson: The activists are now stalking the hard scientists

• ... with the increasingly successful politicization of the university the STEM fields comprise the next frontier for occupation by the politically correct.

As hard as it has been for me to watch Peterson's videos because he's way too tense and jumpy, and having worked in the past in a university environment this isn't news to me, but I do accept his statement that the problem is increasing and it is destroying true science.

Happily for them, it's appears to be a no-brainer that the COVID/brain researchers will continue to be held in high regard by "Science".
 
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Image: Science Comics - The Brain
Fahama has been kidnapped by a mad scientist and his zombie assistant, and they are intent on stealing her brain! She'll need to learn about the brain as fast as possible in order to plan her escape! 

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