Dr Matt’s Newsletter February 25th – “Emord for Senate”
Supporting healthy social interactions and diversity of health choices
This week’s newsletter has a major announcement: Jonathan Emord, an attorney who I have known for many years, is running for office in the United States Senate to represent my home state of Virginia. He has lobbied for health freedom for decades, and has won more cases against the FDA in Federal Court than any other lawyer in history.
He is also a staunch advocate for the right to choose your health approach, including natural medicine choices. Like myself, Jonathan’s background knowledge helped him see through the covid-fears that swept through our world, homes and neighborhoods starting in March 2020. Because of this, he is against mandatory medical treatments and social isolation as a “public health policy”.
I asked him to send me info about his candidacy to share with my avid readers, and I put his unedited reply in my “Community Building” section, below.
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Yours truly, one moment at a time.
Matt Irwin
Today’s newsletter sections include:
Music of the Week – “Big Hair” American Celtic Guitar and “No Hair” Dr Matt with the Capital Quicksteps Quadrille Orchestra
Community Building: Jonathan Emord for US Senate
Inspiration of the Week – A Quote from Albert Einstein
Research of the week – Social Support and Survival of cancer - 50% increased survival is better than any drug could ever hope for.
Music of the Week – Celtic-American guitar and Dr Matt with the Capital Quicksteps.
I like to put music up first so you can “whistle while you work”. However, in this case “dance while you work” might be more appropriate, because Celtic-American music is primarily designed for dancing. To help this point hit home I included video collage of dance tunes from the Capital Quicksteps with yours truly on trumpet. It includes snippets of various dance styles from a dance we played 15 years ago called the “Mid-Winter Ball”.
You may recall that two parents in my practice, Todd Borzych and Migle Gineityte, were featured in last week’s newsletter as hosts of the first ever Strauss Waltz Ball in McLean, Virginia coming up on March 8th.
Two of my favorite musicians are Celtic style guitarists, Robin Bullock and Al Pettaway. Al performs and records with his wife, Amy White, who plays multiple instruments. Below are a few selections, followed by the Quicksteps video collage.
Robin Bullock – based in Baltimore, hailed as a “Celtic guitar god” by Baltimore City Paper. Also known as a “Big Hair God” by a slightly jealous Dr Matt :-)
1) The Pivot Brig: A reel medley from the album Green Fields. You have to be fleet of foot to keep up with these reels – old folks like myself might have to sit out 😊.
2) Jack O'Diamonds / Merrily Kiss The Quaker – Slightly mellower reel set from the album Between Earth and Sky
3) Farewell to Craigie Dhu – As my avid readers have figured out by now, ballads like this one are just my speed - and help me stay more in the present-moment.
4) The Doubtful Guest/Snakebite Jig - A lively reel to close out the set
Al Pettaway and Amy White -
Al and Amy are modern American folk musicians who played for many years in the DC area before moving to Asheville, North Carolina. Al has won a Grammy Award and multiple other awards for his original music.
1) Sligo Creek – The music theme of “The National Parks”
Al and Amy became famous when their music was chosen as the soundtrack of Ken Burn’s documentary, “The National Parks”. This twelve-hour documentary was notable because it emphasized the beauty and poetry of nature as the reason to preserve it, without even a mention of end-of-the-world predictions of doom that are a bit too common in nature specials for my taste.
2) Maggie’s Reel – From the album, Caledon Wood
3) Seven Swans – From the album, Waters and the Wild
And finally, as promised, the Capital Quicksteps Dance photo collage – with “No Hair Dr Matt” and snippets of various dance styles. I played with my father and his mates starting in the early 1980’s when I was just a wee high-schooler. Maybe someday we will have a “Dr Matt’s Practice Family Dance” - all are welcome whether they have “Big Hair” or not :-).
Community Building – Jonathan Emord for US Senate
As stated in the intro, Jonathan strongly favors people’s individual choice for their health, and has defended this right in court for decades. He thus naturally has opposed vaccine mandates from the very beginning.
Below is the summary he sent me when I asked for something to share with my extremely well-educated readers. For more info you can go to the website for his campaign, including opportunities to donate or volunteer.
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Hi Dr. Irwin—On January 31 of this year, I announced my candidacy for the U.S. Senate to replace Tim Kaine. As you know from our interactions over the years, I am opposed to vaccine mandates, strongly favoring individual freedom of choice. As a logical corollary to that position, I favor elimination of regulatory strictures and coercive public health measures designed to compel physicians to avoid exercise of independent professional judgment on the prudence of vaccination in individual cases. In the advent of COVID-19 and the disastrous national campaign of deception regarding the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccine, more Americans, including more Virginians, than ever before are coming to the realization that defense of individual bodily autonomy and freedom of informed choice is an essential liberty right deserving of full protection under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. In that regard, across the state and in numerous radio, television, and print appearances, I have made clear my stance on this issue.
When elected to the United States Senate, I will promptly introduce legislation that will: (1) forbid all federal vaccine and mask mandates; (2) compel the extension of offers to rehire any federal or federal contract employee or member of the armed forces who resigned, retired, or was terminated from service due to his or her refusal to receive COVID-19 vaccination; (3) make the rehire and reimbursement of those terminated for refusal to be vaccinated a condition precedent to continued receipt of federal funds to all institutions now receiving federal allotments, including hospitals, police departments, and fire departments nationwide; (4) prohibit use of any federal funds in aid of and encouragement of COVID-19 vaccination; and (5) prohibit use of any federal funds in aid of or encouragement of the states adopting vaccine schedules as conditions precedent to public schooling of children or to state employment. Those are among the steps I will take to return freedom of informed choice to patients, to return control over the upbringing and care of children to parents, and to restore protection for individual professional judgment in the health care professions. Please visit my web site emordforva.com for more information.
I would welcome reference to my candidacy and to my position on these issues to the subscribers and recipients of your newsletter.
Best,
Jonathan W. Emord, Esq.
Regarding Jonathan’s comment on the lack of safety and efficacy of the covid-19 vaccines, below are two graphs from studies that I reviewed in prior newsletters. The first is from the Cleveland Clinic’s study of it’s 51,000 employees, showing that the chance of testing positive on the “covid tests” increases with each dose of vaccine they received, reviewed on January 18th. The second graph is from the Florida Department of Health’s alert about an incredible increase in serious vaccine adverse events in Florida in 2021 during the covid-19 vaccine rollout, reviewed in last week’s February 18th newsletter.
Graph 1, below, is from the Cleveland clinic study showing that people with zero vaccine doses (black line at the bottom) had the lowest rate of positive “covid tests” and the ones with more than 3 doses (yellow line at the top) had the highest rate - with more than triple the risk of testing positive! In between the lowest risk (no vaccines) and the highest risk (more than 3 doses) are lines showing stepwise increases in covid test positivity with each vaccine dose.
Graph 1: Cleveland Clinic study of 51,000 employees
Graph 2 is from the Florida Department of Health. It shows an incredible spike of reported vaccine adverse events in 2021 during the covid-19 rollout.
Research of the week – Social Support and Survival of cancer
My readers may recall that I previously featured the healing properties of social support in the research section of my newsletter from November 23rd. After 18 years as a home hospice doctor, I have had the blessing of seeing the power of healthy relationships up close and personal in people with extremely fragile health. When you help someone’s quality of life improve, you also improve their quantity of life – a classic “win-win” scenario that we can actually take with us when our turn comes 😊
For once I will keep my research section brief, and let the article speak for itself. They reported a 50% increased survival in people with cancer who have healthy social supports. Studies with more detailed social support analysis had the strongest results, with a 90% increase. Here is a key quote from their abstract:
Across 148 studies (308,849 participants), the effect size was OR = 1.50, indicating a 50% increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships… the association was strongest for complex measures of social integration (OR = 1.91) and lowest for binary indicators of residential status (living alone versus with others) (OR = 1.19).
Reference:
Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB (2010, July). PLoS Med. 2010 Jul 27;7(7):e1000316. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316. PMID: 20668659; PMCID: PMC2910600.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20668659/