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Attorneys Report Spike In Calls For Help From Families Of Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19

Attorneys Report Spike In Calls For Help From Families Of Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19

Authored by Nanette Holt via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Attorneys around the country report an alarming uptick in calls for help from familie

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Attorneys Report Spike In Calls For Help From Families Of Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19

Authored by Nanette Holt via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Attorneys around the country report an alarming uptick in calls for help from families of patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

Health care workers attend to a patient with COVID-19 at the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, Calif., on Sept. 2, 2021. (Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)

Some say they’ve talked to family members who were arrested after trying to visit a loved one or to speak with a doctor after communications with the hospital were cut off.

Attorneys told The Epoch Times about a wide variety of instances of what they call abuse, including hospitals preventing visits from family, failing to provide nutrition and fluids, and coercing patients to agree to treatments they’d already refused multiple times—such as being placed on a ventilator.

Gainesville, Florida, attorney Jeff Childers has been so alarmed by the cases he’s seen, he posted a tutorial online with tips on how to navigate the legalities surrounding hospitalization with COVID-19.

Childers warns that he’s not a doctor and that he’s not offering medical advice.

When his office gets calls from concerned family members, the patient in question is already on a ventilator and the family is desperately concerned about treatment.

In many cases, the hospitals have refused to release the patient, citing their unstable condition, meaning that at some point it can become impossible to get off the COVID express,” Childers wrote in his blog.

“The most common complaints we get include that patients are being pressured to accept Remdesivir, have been given Remdesivir even though they objected to it, or the hospital will not administer alternative widely-used treatments even though the patient is in critical condition where side effects are less risky than imminent death.

I have personally seen hospitals spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers to keep patients in their facility.”

Attorneys for the family of Daniel Pisano (shown here with his wife of 51 years, Claudia) had filed a lawsuit asking a judge to order Mayo Clinic to allow treatment with ivermectin and other vitamins and medications. (Courtesy of Chris Pisano)

Childers was one of the attorneys who took on Mayo Clinic Florida in court hoping to help the family of Daniel Pisano try medications they believed would help him. Mayo Clinic attorneys fought back vigorously.

The Pisano family also had tried to arrange to transfer the 70-year-old grandfather and businessman to a hospital where he could receive the medications an outside doctor had said could save him.

Pisano passed while the family was still fighting to obtain alternative medications for him.

I call it medical kidnapping,” Childers said. “This isn’t over by a long shot,” he added, alluding to a continuation of the fight with Mayo Clinic.

Mayo Clinic Florida has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the case and hospital attorneys asked judges on multiple occasions to seal documents that would reveal their arguments.

Another hospital in Naples, Florida, had two sisters arrested when they came to the facility seeking a visit with their father or a conversation with his doctor, Jim Boatman, an attorney, told The Epoch Times. The hospital stopped responding to the family’s requests for updates on their loved one when they started asking about alternative treatments, Boatman said.

Ultimately the women, who briefly spent time in jail for the offense, decided it would put their father’s care at risk if they filed a lawsuit, Boatman told The Epoch Times.

Attorney Esther Bodek in Aurora, Colorado, also knows of a patient’s family members who were arrested when communications with a hospital went sour. She says requests from families of COVID-19 patients have flooded in since November.

It’s traumatizing,” Bodek said, “because it is a level of civil rights abuses that I have never encountered in my entire life.”

In case after case, she’s seen a pattern of separating COVID-19 patients from their families and restricting visitation. “And during that period of time is usually when the remdesivir is administered.”

A vial of Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir in Belgium in a file image. (Dirk Vaem/Belga/AFP via Getty Images)

Some families coming to her for help often strenuously object to treatment with remdesivir. When other treatments have failed, they desperately want to try things the hospital won’t allow, such as ivermectin and vitamins.

Those are part of a popular protocol used by independent doctors around the country and by people treating themselves at home.

Bodek has fought many times to obtain those medications as a last-ditch effort to save a patient. She said the resistance she faces when dealing with the hospitals is maddening.

Any question about treatment starts immediate combativeness [by hospital staff], from what I’ve seen in the pattern of our cases,” she said.

She’s had clients denied fluids and nutrition to the point of near-starvation. Since taking those cases she works night and day seven days a week.

On the weekend, “I’ll be on the phone and talking to somebody in tears,” she said. “The hospital’s telling them they want to pull the plug and they’re trying to make a decision. The doctor says, ‘We’re going to take him off life support now.’ And I’ve had to say ‘No! That’s not their choice!’”

One of her clients works in billing in a hospital and told her that hospitals receive a bonus payment of $17,000 from the federal government for every patient confirmed to have COVID-19, Bodek said. A bonus payment of $37,000 is paid for any patient going on a ventilator, according to that client, Bodek said.

“And she works in hospital billing, so she would know,” Bodek added.

Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, speaks about the CCP virus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on April 7, 2020. (Alex Brandon/AP)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not responded to requests for details about payments made to hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Bodek’s advice: “Stay out of the hospital, no matter what. And if it happens that you’re admitted, have a medical power of attorney immediately written up to say no to remdesivir.”

She’s looking into filing civil rights violations lawsuits if claims of medical malpractice won’t work.

I’m determined to find a way to stop this abuse,” Bodek said. “This is definitely a fight we’re not giving up.”

Omaha, Neb. attorney Gerard Forgét, who specializes in trusts and estates, contacted The Epoch Times hoping to offer similar advice for readers.

Hospitals often ask patients being admitted to sign a health-care directive or living will indicating, in advance, decisions about whether or not to be put on life support.

“I advise clients against this,” Forgét said. Signing one of those documents “vests your physician with authority that supersedes your spouse, or other family members. This can yield tragic results!”

Giving a physician that power means he or she can remove life support without consulting family, he says. “Signing that gives your physician permission to kill you!”

The problems in American health care will take a long time to correct, Childers said.

“The blessing is COVID has exposed the problems” in health care, he added. “They weren’t created by COVID. COVID showed us where they are.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 02/03/2022 - 19:00

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat"…

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Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19

A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat" to the health of the US population - a sharp decline from a high of 67% in July 2020.

(SARMDY/Shutterstock)

What's more, the Pew Research Center survey conducted from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that just 10% of Americans are concerned that they will  catch the disease and require hospitalization.

"This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health," reads the report, which was published March 7.

According to the survey, half of the participants understand the significance of researchers and healthcare providers in understanding and treating long COVID - however 27% of participants consider this issue less important, while 22% of Americans are unaware of long COVID.

What's more, while Democrats were far more worried than Republicans in the past, that gap has narrowed significantly.

"In the pandemic’s first year, Democrats were routinely about 40 points more likely than Republicans to view the coronavirus as a major threat to the health of the U.S. population. This gap has waned as overall levels of concern have fallen," reads the report.

More via the Epoch Times;

The survey found that three in ten Democrats under 50 have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older.

Moreover, 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine, while only 24 percent of Republicans ages 65 and older have done so.

“This 42-point partisan gap is much wider now than at other points since the start of the outbreak. For instance, in August 2021, 93 percent of older Democrats and 78 percent of older Republicans said they had received all the shots needed to be fully vaccinated (a 15-point gap),” it noted.

COVID-19 No Longer an Emergency

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued its updated recommendations for the virus, which no longer require people to stay home for five days after testing positive for COVID-19.

The updated guidance recommends that people who contracted a respiratory virus stay home, and they can resume normal activities when their symptoms improve overall and their fever subsides for 24 hours without medication.

“We still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses, this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick,” CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.

The CDC said that while the virus remains a threat, it is now less likely to cause severe illness because of widespread immunity and improved tools to prevent and treat the disease.

Importantly, states and countries that have already adjusted recommended isolation times have not seen increased hospitalizations or deaths related to COVID-19,” it stated.

The federal government suspended its free at-home COVID-19 test program on March 8, according to a website set up by the government, following a decrease in COVID-19-related hospitalizations.

According to the CDC, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 and influenza diseases remain “elevated” but are decreasing in some parts of the United States.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 22:45

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Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says “I Would Support”

Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says "I Would Support"

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump…

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Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run - Musk Says "I Would Support"

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump into the race to become the next Senate GOP leader, and Elon Musk was quick to support the idea. Republicans must find a successor for periodically malfunctioning Mitch McConnell, who recently announced he'll step down in November, though intending to keep his Senate seat until his term ends in January 2027, when he'd be within weeks of turning 86. 

So far, the announced field consists of two quintessential establishment types: John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota. While John Barrasso's name had been thrown around as one of "The Three Johns" considered top contenders, the Wyoming senator on Tuesday said he'll instead seek the number two slot as party whip. 

Paul used X to tease his potential bid for the position which -- if the GOP takes back the upper chamber in November -- could graduate from Minority Leader to Majority Leader. He started by telling his 5.1 million followers he'd had lots of people asking him about his interest in running...

...then followed up with a poll in which he predictably annihilated Cornyn and Thune, taking a 96% share as of Friday night, with the other two below 2% each. 

Elon Musk was quick to back the idea of Paul as GOP leader, while daring Cornyn and Thune to follow Paul's lead by throwing their names out for consideration by the Twitter-verse X-verse. 

Paul has been a stalwart opponent of security-state mass surveillance, foreign interventionism -- to include shoveling billions of dollars into the proxy war in Ukraine -- and out-of-control spending in general. He demonstrated the latter passion on the Senate floor this week as he ridiculed the latest kick-the-can spending package:   

In February, Paul used Senate rules to force his colleagues into a grueling Super Bowl weekend of votes, as he worked to derail a $95 billion foreign aid bill. "I think we should stay here as long as it takes,” said Paul. “If it takes a week or a month, I’ll force them to stay here to discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”

Don't expect a Majority Leader Paul to ditch the filibuster -- he's been a hardy user of the legislative delay tactic. In 2013, he spoke for 13 hours to fight the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director. In 2015, he orated for 10-and-a-half-hours to oppose extension of the Patriot Act

Rand Paul amid his 10 1/2 hour filibuster in 2015

Among the general public, Paul is probably best known as Capitol Hill's chief tormentor of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease during the Covid-19 pandemic. Paul says the evidence indicates the virus emerged from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. He's accused Fauci and other members of the US government public health apparatus of evading questions about their funding of the Chinese lab's "gain of function" research, which takes natural viruses and morphs them into something more dangerous. Paul has pointedly said that Fauci committed perjury in congressional hearings and that he belongs in jail "without question."   

Musk is neither the only nor the first noteworthy figure to back Paul for party leader. Just hours after McConnell announced his upcoming step-down from leadership, independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr voiced his support: 

In a testament to the extent to which the establishment recoils at the libertarian-minded Paul, mainstream media outlets -- which have been quick to report on other developments in the majority leader race -- pretended not to notice that Paul had signaled his interest in the job. More than 24 hours after Paul's test-the-waters tweet-fest began, not a single major outlet had brought it to the attention of their audience. 

That may be his strongest endorsement yet. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 20:25

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The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While “Waiting” For Deporation, Asylum

The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum

Over the past several…

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The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum

Over the past several months we've pointed out that there has  been zero job creation for native-born workers since the summer of 2018...

... and that since Joe Biden was sworn into office, most of the post-pandemic job gains the administration continuously brags about have gone foreign-born (read immigrants, mostly illegal ones) workers.

And while the left might find this data almost as verboten as FBI crime statistics - as it directly supports the so-called "great replacement theory" we're not supposed to discuss - it also coincides with record numbers of illegal crossings into the United States under Biden.

In short, the Biden administration opened the floodgates, 10 million illegal immigrants poured into the country, and most of the post-pandemic "jobs recovery" went to foreign-born workers, of which illegal immigrants represent the largest chunk.

Asylum seekers from Venezuela await work permits on June 28, 2023 (via the Chicago Tribune)

'But Tyler, illegal immigrants can't possibly work in the United States whilst awaiting their asylum hearings,' one might hear from the peanut gallery. On the contrary: ever since Biden reversed a key aspect of Trump's labor policies, all illegal immigrants - even those awaiting deportation proceedings - have been given carte blanche to work while awaiting said proceedings for up to five years...

... something which even Elon Musk was shocked to learn.

Which leads us to another question: recall that the primary concern for the Biden admin for much of 2022 and 2023 was soaring prices, i.e., relentless inflation in general, and rising wages in particular, which in turn prompted even Goldman to admit two years ago that the diabolical wage-price spiral had been unleashed in the US (diabolical, because nothing absent a major economic shock, read recession or depression, can short-circuit it once it is in place).

Well, there is one other thing that can break the wage-price spiral loop: a flood of ultra-cheap illegal immigrant workers. But don't take our word for it: here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself during his February 60 Minutes interview:

PELLEY: Why was immigration important?

POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans do. But that's largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.

PELLEY: Why is immigration so important to the economy?

POWELL: Well, first of all, immigration policy is not the Fed's job. The immigration policy of the United States is really important and really much under discussion right now, and that's none of our business. We don't set immigration policy. We don't comment on it.

I will say, over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And, frankly, just in the last, year a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era.

PELLEY: The country needed the workers.

POWELL: It did. And so, that's what's been happening.

Translation: Immigrants work hard, and Americans are lazy. But much more importantly, since illegal immigrants will work for any pay, and since Biden's Department of Homeland Security, via its Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency, has made it so illegal immigrants can work in the US perfectly legally for up to 5 years (if not more), one can argue that the flood of illegals through the southern border has been the primary reason why inflation - or rather mostly wage inflation, that all too critical component of the wage-price spiral  - has moderated in in the past year, when the US labor market suddenly found itself flooded with millions of perfectly eligible workers, who just also happen to be illegal immigrants and thus have zero wage bargaining options.

None of this is to suggest that the relentless flood of immigrants into the US is not also driven by voting and census concerns - something Elon Musk has been pounding the table on in recent weeks, and has gone so far to call it "the biggest corruption of American democracy in the 21st century", but in retrospect, one can also argue that the only modest success the Biden admin has had in the past year - namely bringing inflation down from a torrid 9% annual rate to "only" 3% - has also been due to the millions of illegals he's imported into the country.

We would be remiss if we didn't also note that this so often carries catastrophic short-term consequences for the social fabric of the country (the Laken Riley fiasco being only the latest example), not to mention the far more dire long-term consequences for the future of the US - chief among them the trillions of dollars in debt the US will need to incur to pay for all those new illegal immigrants Democrat voters and low-paid workers. This is on top of the labor revolution that will kick in once AI leads to mass layoffs among high-paying, white-collar jobs, after which all those newly laid off native-born workers hoping to trade down to lower paying (if available) jobs will discover that hardened criminals from Honduras or Guatemala have already taken them, all thanks to Joe Biden.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/10/2024 - 19:15

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