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Communicable diseases are not communicable

2020-10 , Kostoff, Ronald N. , Briggs, Michael B. , Kanduc, Darja , Porter, Alan L. , Buchtel, Henry A.

Communicable disease is a misnomer. The disease is not communicable; the microbe mainly associated with the disease is communicable. Whether the recipient of the microbe develops the disease depends on the health of the recipient’s immune system. Our model of COVID-19 development starts with real-life exposures to multiple toxic stressors degrading the immune system. This is followed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus exploiting the degraded immune system to trigger a chain of events ultimately leading to COVID-19. To prevent or treat infectious disease, the health of the immune system must be maintained or improved. One major component of maintaining and improving immune system health is removal of those factors that contribute to immune system degradation. A previous monograph identified many factors that contribute to immune system degradation (Contributing Factors (CFs)). It was hypothesized that many of these CFs to immune system degradation were identical to those that past studies have shown were CFs to chronic diseases. To test this hypothesis, a proof-of-principle demonstration was performed to identify the commonality between CFs to immune system degradation and CFs to Parkinson’s Disease (PD). A very streamlined approach was used, and approximately 500 CFs were found in common between the two diseases. Since COVID-19 (and other infectious diseases) results from immune system degradation in our model, this means COVID-19 and PD are enabled by many of the same toxic exposures and toxic behaviors. Thus, many of the measures required to strategically treat and prevent infectious diseases are similar to those required to strategically treat and prevent chronic diseases. This is a major paradigm shift for orthodox Western medicine, but is required to achieve major advances in global population health.

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Combining Tactical and Strategic Treatments for COVID-19

2020-03 , Kostoff, Ronald N.

As of mid-March, 2020, many countries in the world are on partial lockdown, to control the spread of the pandemic (COVID-19) resulting from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The only effective ‘treatments’ at this time are good hygiene and quarantine. This document presents a novel combined tactical and strategic treatment approach for COVID-19 that incorporates both the tactical and strategic approaches we have developed for preventing and reversing myriad diseases, including treatment repurposing as well. Optimally, the tactical and strategic approach components would be implemented in parallel, to provide benefit from the synergies of the combined approach.

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COVID-19: Preventing Future Pandemics

2020 , Kostoff, Ronald N. , Briggs, Michael B. , Porter, Alan L.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had global health and economic adverse impacts. The main measures being taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus associated with COVID-19) are conceptually those that were taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV in the previous coronavirus-driven pandemic of 2002-2003: good hygiene, facemasks, and quarantine (lockdown). The difference is the larger scale of these measures for SARS-CoV-2. A weakened immune system appears to be the main determinant of serious/fatal reaction to viral infection (for COVID-19, SARS, and influenza alike). There are four major approaches being employed or considered presently to augment or strengthen the immune system, in order to reduce adverse effects of viral exposure. The three approaches that are mainly focused on augmenting the immune system are based on the concept that pandemics can be controlled/prevented while maintaining the immune-weakening lifestyles followed by much of the global population. The fourth approach is based on identifying and introducing measures aimed at strengthening the immune system intrinsically in order to minimize future pandemics. The four measures are: 1) restricting exposure to virus; 2) providing reactive/tactical treatments to reduce viral load; 3) developing vaccines to prevent, or at least attenuate, the infection; 4) strengthening the immune system intrinsically, by a) identifying those factors that contribute to weakening the immune system, then eliminating/reducing them as comprehensively, thoroughly, and rapidly as possible and b) replacing the eliminated factors with immune-strengthening factors. The present monograph focuses mainly on strengthening the immune system intrinsically. It identifies hundreds of factors that contribute to weakening the immune system, as well as measures that can strengthen the immune system. It also addresses the vaccine issue, since vaccine development has been emphasized in myriad forums. Potential mid-and long-term adverse vaccine effects that cannot be identified in short-term tests characteristic of efficacy testing are identified. To ensure safety, long-term testing under real-life conditions (exposures to multiple toxic stimuli) are required. There is an incompatibility between the accelerated vaccine development times being pursued by government and industry and the long times required for validation of vaccine safety. In summary, 1) there is not unanimity within the medical community for continuing post-lockdown the severe restrictions on activities of the vast majority of the total population that are mainly applicable to the most vulnerable very small minority of the total population; 2) repurposed (mainly) antiviral treatments can only be expected to have very limited results in controlling SARS-CoV-2 viral load of the most severely impacted, based on trials conducted so far; 3) it is difficult to see how safe COVID-19 vaccines can be developed and fully tested on time scales of one or two years, as proposed presently; 4) the only real protection against a future COVID-19 pandemic or any other viral pandemic is the one that was demonstrated to work in the SARS pandemic, the MERS pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the annual influenza pandemics: a healthy immune system capable of neutralizing incoming viruses as Nature intended. We need an Operation Warp Speed (currently working to produce a vaccine in a record short time period in the USA) to identify and eliminate those factors that weaken the immune system as thoroughly, comprehensively, and rapidly as possible.

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Prevention and Reversal of Chronic Disease: Lessons Learned

2019-11 , Kostoff, Ronald N.

For a decade, our research group has been developing protocols to prevent and reverse chronic diseases. The present monograph outlines the lessons we have learned from both conducting the studies and identifying common patterns in the results. The main product of our studies is a five-step treatment protocol to reverse any chronic disease, based on the following systemic medical principle: at the present time, removal of cause is a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition for restorative treatment to be effective. Implementation of the five-step treatment protocol is as follows: Step 1: Obtain a detailed medical and habit/exposure history from the patient. Step 2: Administer written and clinical performance and behavioral tests to assess the severity of symptoms and performance measures. Step 3: Administer laboratory tests (blood, urine, imaging, etc) Step 4: Eliminate ongoing contributing factors to the chronic disease Step 5: Implement treatments for the chronic disease This individually-tailored chronic disease treatment protocol can be implemented with the data available in the biomedical literature now. It is general and applicable to any chronic disease that has an associated substantial research literature (with the possible exceptions of individuals with strong genetic predispositions to the disease in question or who have suffered irreversible damage from the disease). To prevent any chronic disease, eliminate those contributing factors that serve as a basis for Step 4.

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Driving green: Employment effects, policy adoption, and public perceptions of electric vehicles

2020-06-03 , Soni, Anmol

Energy for usage in the transportation sector is primarily derived from petroleum products and accounts for 14% (EPA 2017a) of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and 28% (EPA 2018b) of total emissions in the US. In the US. 60% of these emissions are from light-duty vehicles and passenger vehicles (EPA 2018a). A major push has been made towards alternative fuel vehicles such as electric vehicles (EVs) to mitigate the environmental impact of the transportation sector. This dissertation explores the implications of a growing EV sector by analyzing the employment effects, policy effectiveness, and public perception of EVs. EV adoption stands to affect the overall employment in the automotive sector and allied industries. A typical EV has fewer parts and requires less maintenance than a comparable internal combustion engine (ICE) model. This differential would inevitably change the traditional model of car sales by dealers who also rely on repairs and maintenance revenues. The dissertation uses input-output modeling to examine the implications of growing EVs on employment under different scenarios and cost assumptions. The study finds that while overall employment numbers might not change significantly, the composition of jobs shifts towards more battery production and electricity generation and distribution. The second study in the dissertation examines the effectiveness of different policy choices in increasing EV adoption across states. A supportive policy environment stands to increase EV adoption. In addition to federal-level policies in the US, states have introduced several policies to increase the adoption of EVs by individual consumers and fleets. The study applies econometric analysis to a panel dataset combining EV policies with sales to examine effectiveness and design choices across states. Finally, public perception of EVs must be understood to anticipate whether these vehicles are adopted at a large scale to make an impact on the traditional industry structure. Like any new technology, EV adoption hinges on the current and potential consumers' opinions and acceptance. The dissertation uses survey data and examines the external and internal determinants of public interest in EVs. The study concludes that factors such as political affiliation, environmental efforts of respondents affect their level of interest in EV technology.

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The Largest Unethical Medical Experiment in Human History

2020-02 , Kostoff, Ronald N.

This monograph describes the largest unethical medical experiment in human history: the implementation and operation of non-ionizing non-visible EMF radiation (hereafter called wireless radiation) infrastructure for communications, surveillance, weaponry, and other applications. It is unethical because it violates the key ethical medical experiment requirement for “informed consent” by the overwhelming majority of the participants. The monograph provides background on unethical medical research/experimentation, and frames the implementation of wireless radiation within that context. The monograph then identifies a wide spectrum of adverse effects of wireless radiation as reported in the premier biomedical literature for over seven decades. Even though many of these reported adverse effects are extremely severe, the true extent of their severity has been grossly underestimated. Most of the reported laboratory experiments that produced these effects are not reflective of the real-life environment in which wireless radiation operates. Many experiments do not include pulsing and modulation of the carrier signal, and most do not account for synergistic effects of other toxic stimuli acting in concert with the wireless radiation. These two additions greatly exacerbate the severity of the adverse effects from wireless radiation, and their neglect in current (and past) experimentation results in substantial under-estimation of the breadth and severity of adverse effects to be expected in a real-life situation. This lack of credible safety testing, combined with depriving the public of the opportunity to provide informed consent, contextualizes the wireless radiation infrastructure operation as an unethical medical experiment.

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COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Considerations

2020 , Kostoff, Ronald N. , Kanduc, Darja , Porter, Alan L. , Shoenfeld, Yehuda , Briggs, Michael B.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has produced global health and economic adverse impacts. The main measures being taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and of the virus-associated diseases (COVID-19) are conceptually those that were taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV in the previous coronavirus-driven pandemic of 2002-2003: good hygiene, facemasks, and quarantine (lockdown). The difference is the larger scale of these measures for SARS-CoV-2. A degraded/dysfunctional immune system appears to be the main determinant of serious/fatal reaction to viral infection (for COVID-19, SARS, and influenza alike). There are four major approaches being employed or considered presently to augment or strengthen the immune system, in order to reduce adverse effects of viral exposure. The three approaches that are focused mainly on augmenting the immune system are based on the concept that pandemics can be controlled/prevented while maintaining the immune-degrading lifestyles followed by much of the global population. The fourth approach is based on identifying and introducing measures aimed at strengthening the immune system intrinsically in order to minimize future pandemics. Specifically, the four measures are: 1) restricting exposure to virus; 2) providing reactive/tactical treatments to reduce viral load; 3) developing vaccines to prevent, or at least attenuate, the infection; 4) strengthening the immune system intrinsically, by a) identifying those factors that contribute to degrading the immune system, then eliminating/reducing them as comprehensively, thoroughly, and rapidly as possible, and b) replacing the eliminated factors with immune-strengthening factors. A previous monograph [1] focused mainly on strengthening the immune system intrinsically, and secondarily on vaccine-related issues. It identified many hundreds of factors that contribute to weakening the immune system, as well as measures that can strengthen it. The present monograph focuses on vaccine safety. A future COVID-19 vaccine appears to be the treatment of choice at the national/international level globally. Vaccine development has been accelerated to achieve this goal in the relatively near-term, and questions have arisen whether vaccine safety has been/is being/will be compromised in pursuit of a shortened vaccine development time. In addition to identifying short-term adverse vaccine effects, the present monograph identifies potential mid-and long-term adverse vaccine effects that cannot be identified in short-term tests characteristic of vaccine efficacy testing. To ensure vaccine safety, long-term testing under real-life conditions (exposures to multiple toxic stimuli) is required. There is an incompatibility between the accelerated vaccine development times being pursued by government and industry and the long times required for validation of vaccine safety. In summary, it is difficult to see how safe COVID-19 vaccines can be developed and fully tested for safety on development time scales of one or two years, as proposed presently. The only real protection against a future COVID-19 pandemic or any other viral pandemic is the one that was demonstrated to work in the SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 pandemic, and in the annual influenza pandemics: a healthy immune system capable of neutralizing incoming viruses as nature intended.

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For the birds: Researching theory and practice in environmental conservation policy processes

2020-04-16 , Mistur, Evan Matthew

This dissertation explores how policy processes and decision-making structures influence environmental management in public agencies. It contributes to our understanding of how traditional bureaucratic systems of organization overlap and integrate with collaborative management structures in both theory and practice. First, it investigates the potential for Adaptive Management to take place within a bureaucratic system by examining a public agency’s response to a pair of unforeseen environmental shocks as two endangered species of bat were discovered. Using a mixed-methods analysis, it qualitatively examines the agency’s adaptive processes and extends the Adaptive Management model to describe mediating actors in the management process, then quantitatively tests the impact of this process using OLS regression, demonstrating that it significantly improves project outcomes at the agency. Next, it examines how stakeholder engagement impacts management capacity and organizational decision-making at a public agency focused on sea turtle conservation. It examines the extent to which engaging local stakeholders increases the agency’s ability to perform, the level of alignment between volunteer and professional managers’ motivations, and the impact their motivations have on the decision-making process using a qualitative comparative case-study analysis. This study demonstrates that stakeholder engagement provides integral support to agency initiatives at the functional level and is critical to managerial ability, but that it introduces goal misalignment within the agency and can bias managers’ decision-making through target fixation. Finally, this dissertation investigates policy diffusion through the spread of state birdwatching trail programs across the US. This study challenges incumbent policy diffusion theory explaining diffusion through regional proximity and introduces a time-variant, micro-level mechanism to describe the spread of policy adoption. It tests this mechanism using fixed effects regression and demonstrates that special-interest group movement can more accurately model policy diffusion at a micro level. This work contributes to our theoretical understanding of environmental policy and can be used by researchers investigating the process of administration of environmental services. Furthermore, it provides useful evidence that can inform practitioners tasked with designing or running environmental management programs in the field.

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Analysis of American Passenger Rail: Expansion into Rural Georgia

2020 , Cohen, Sophia A.

This paper analyzes the historical and social impacts of American passenger rail to highlight a solution to lacking connectivity and transportation options for rural Georgians. Rural Georgians need a lasting and adequate solution to the issue of lacking access to jobs, healthcare, and neighboring areas. Supplemented by Van services that ineffectively address the core issue of an inexistent reliable transportation system, the creation of a passenger rail line utilizing existing freight tracks along the Atlanta, Macon, Savannah route would encompass and serve the surrounding rural communities. Analyzing the specific actions for federal, state, and municipal governments to take, there is data supporting the substantial benefits passenger rail can have on the rural areas as well as urban areas by decreasing commuting traffic in urban centers.

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Path-dependencies faced by select policies toward solid-state lighting

2019-12-18 , Smith, Alexander M.

The studies in this dissertation – concerning inter-firm R&D collaboration, patent production and sharing, and electric power infrastructure – will illustrate the influence of path-dependency on outcomes delivered by policies stimulating innovation in the lighting sector. This dissertation will build upon prior findings in path-dependency studies by applying path-dependency to distinct policies: collaboration-enhancing policies, patent licensing requirements, and lighting subsidies paired with emissions regulations. In doing so, the studies will highlight the social factors that influence lighting innovation. Just as the dominance of the electric lightbulb was not produced from a good idea alone – needing trade cartels and patent attorneys to achieve just its initial growth – so too do contemporary ideas for changing the way we illuminate the world rely on resources far greater than new technology ideas alone. In highlighting factors that frustrate the aims of contemporary innovation policies towards lighting, this dissertation aims to inform the design of future innovation policies such that future policies may account for influential factors and design strategies that nullify or take advantage of such factors to enact change.

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