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In polygamous communities, deep roots of distrust shape vaccine hesitancy

Fear of prosecution and a history of distrust toward the government have contributed to some fundamentalist groups’ views of medicine.

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A group of protesters stands inside the Utah State Capitol in 2016, criticizing a proposal to make polygamy a felony again. Rick Bowmer/AP

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church or LDS church, followed government guidelines to protect members of their religious community. On March 25, 2020, the church closed its temples and encouraged members to wear masks. Leaders praised vaccination, which church President Russell M. Nelson, a retired surgeon, called a “literal godsend.” He and other senior members received vaccinations, calling on church members to follow their example.

Fundamentalist branches of Mormonism, however – groups who began separating from the LDS church after it ended the institutionally sanctioned practice of polygamy in 1904 – took a different route. Many fundamentalists have refused to take the vaccine and have sought alternative therapies, including the controversial use of Ivermectin, a drug commonly prescribed to treat intestinal parasites.

Nationwide, about 30% of Americans have not received any vaccine dose against COVID-19. Many express skepticism about government intervention in their families’ health, opinions that are sometimes rooted in misinformation or conspiracy theories.

Wariness toward government and medical authorities can run especially deep in isolated or marginalized communities. As a scholar of Mormon fundamentalism, I’ve seen how, for fundamentalists, such fears are rooted in distrust. From the founding of the LDS church in 1830, its members often faced discrimination and persecution, but conflict decreased significantly after the end of institutionally sanctioned polygamous marriages. Fundamentalist groups, on the other hand, still view the government with suspicion. Many continue polygamy, and fear of being reported to law enforcement keeps them from accessing resources like health care.

Cautious care

Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS church, taught that God has a body and that people’s own bodies are sacred gifts to help them reach eternity.

Given the religious importance of human bodies, his followers believed they required great care – and many 19th-century church members were suspicious of medical authorities, amid rising anti-Mormon sentiment. During the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, for example, George B. Sanderson was appointed medical officer for the Mormon Battalion, a unit recruited from the Utah Territory. He frequently prescribed mercury chloride and arsenic, which were standard treatments at the time, but caused contention among the troops. Distrustful soldiers questioned whether he was poisoning them and remembered him as “Dr. Death.”

Early LDS leaders warned against “poisonous medicines.” Brigham Young, the church’s second president, counseled his community in alternative therapies to keep them away from medical professionals they did not trust.

An often-quoted adage – popularly attributed to Young – is that Latter-day Saints should have knowledge of several herbs “to withstand the scourges of the last days.” Comfrey in particular became a catch-all treatment and remains a staple in fundamentalist homes wary of medical professionals.

After the turn of the 20th century, when the LDS church began supporting legal prosecution of polygamy and excommunicating members who practiced it, fundamentalist groups became even more isolated and continued to rely on home remedies. During the Cold War, former members of one group recall, their late leader instructed followers that a bitter concoction called “green drink” could preserve the bodies of the most righteous from nuclear fallout.

In this black and white photo, a group of about a dozen men in suits stands in a courtroom.
Men being tried for unlawful cohabitation stand in a courtroom in Salt Lake City in 1945. Tensions with the government over polygamy still influence fundamentalist groups’ distrust toward officials today. AP Photo/Anonymous

Changes ahead?

In my own research within these fundamentalist communities, I’ve seen the use of comfrey firsthand – and even had it prescribed to me for colds.

In 2018, I was doing fieldwork in a rural polygamous community in Nevada during a whooping cough outbreak. Many members deemed vaccines dangerous and were reluctant to enter hospitals for fear of being reported to authorities. At the instruction of their leader, an alternative health practitioner who was esteemed as a prophet, women took to their kitchens and prepared a bitter drink called “anti-plague,” a dark brown liquid made primarily of comfrey.

Today, medical professionals and government agencies warn against consuming comfrey because of potential liver damage. Yet many fundamentalist families deem government interference more risky than the herb.

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When people from polygamous communities explain the barriers they face because of their chosen lifestyle, access to medical care for their children is a central concern. This became a central point of debate during the legislative hearings for SB102, a bill signed into law in 2020 that effectively decriminalized polygamy in Utah after years of debate. The new law lowers polygamy to an infraction, rather than a felony, unless connected to other crimes such as abuse.

Since the bill passed there has been significant growth in the number of families seeking community and government resources. In 2019, for example, one nonprofit working with polygamist families reported that 800 victims of crime received assistance, including mental health services and legal support. By the end of 2020, that number had increased to 1,098.

Researchers will be watching closely to see how decriminalization affects fundamentalist communities’ health.

Cristina Rosetti was previously affiliated with Cherish Families, a NGO that provides support for polygamous families and those leaving polygamous communities, as a director of their 2021 awareness campaign. In addition, she lobbied and testified in favor of SB102, a bill that lowered the criminal status of polygamy in Utah to an infraction for consenting adults.

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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3 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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4 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Another beloved brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The beer industry has been devastated by covid, changing tastes, and maybe fallout from the Bud Light scandal.

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4 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Before the covid pandemic, craft beer was having a moment. Most cities had multiple breweries and taprooms with some having so many that people put together the brewery version of a pub crawl.

It was a period where beer snobbery ruled the day and it was not uncommon to hear bar patrons discuss the makeup of the beer the beer they were drinking. This boom period always seemed destined for failure, or at least a retraction as many markets seemed to have more craft breweries than they could support.

Related: Fast-food chain closes more stores after Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The pandemic, however, hastened that downfall. Many of these local and regional craft breweries counted on in-person sales to drive their business. 

And while many had local and regional distribution, selling through a third party comes with much lower margins. Direct sales drove their business and the pandemic forced many breweries to shut down their taprooms during the period where social distancing rules were in effect.

During those months the breweries still had rent and employees to pay while little money was coming in. That led to a number of popular beermakers including San Francisco's nationally-known Anchor Brewing as well as many regional favorites including Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing, New Jersey’s Flying Fish, Denver’s Joyride Brewing, Tampa’s Zydeco Brew Werks, and Cleveland’s Terrestrial Brewing filing bankruptcy.

Some of these brands hope to survive, but others, including Anchor Brewing, fell into Chapter 7 liquidation. Now, another domino has fallen as a popular regional brewery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Overall beer sales have fallen.

Image source: Shutterstock

Covid is not the only reason for brewery bankruptcies

While covid deserves some of the blame for brewery failures, it's not the only reason why so many have filed for bankruptcy protection. Overall beer sales have fallen driven by younger people embracing non-alcoholic cocktails, and the rise in popularity of non-beer alcoholic offerings,

Beer sales have fallen to their lowest levels since 1999 and some industry analysts

"Sales declined by more than 5% in the first nine months of the year, dragged down not only by the backlash and boycotts against Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light but the changing habits of younger drinkers," according to data from Beer Marketer’s Insights published by the New York Post.

Bud Light parent Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD) faced massive boycotts after it partnered with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. It was a very small partnership but it led to a right-wing backlash spurred on by Kid Rock, who posted a video on social media where he chastised the company before shooting up cases of Bud Light with an automatic weapon.

Another brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Gizmo Brew Works, which does business under the name Roth Brewing Company LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 8. In its filing, the company checked the box that indicates that its debts are less than $7.5 million and it chooses to proceed under Subchapter V of Chapter 11. 

"Both small business and subchapter V cases are treated differently than a traditional chapter 11 case primarily due to accelerated deadlines and the speed with which the plan is confirmed," USCourts.gov explained. 

Roth Brewing/Gizmo Brew Works shared that it has 50-99 creditors and assets $100,000 and $500,000. The filing noted that the company does expect to have funds available for unsecured creditors. 

The popular brewery operates three taprooms and sells its beer to go at those locations.

"Join us at Gizmo Brew Works Craft Brewery and Taprooms located in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Find us for entertainment, live music, food trucks, beer specials, and most importantly, great-tasting craft beer by Gizmo Brew Works," the company shared on its website.

The company estimates that it has between $1 and $10 million in liabilities (a broad range as the bankruptcy form does not provide a space to be more specific).

Gizmo Brew Works/Roth Brewing did not share a reorganization or funding plan in its bankruptcy filing. An email request for comment sent through the company's contact page was not immediately returned.

 

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