TallGuyJohninBKK

I don't know that there's any way to definitively establish what caused his individual lung cancer... But... the link between air pollution and premature fatality, including from lung cancer, is definitely there: "State Of Global Air reported that in 2019, over 32,000 deaths in Thailand were attributable to ambient particulate matter pollution (PM2.5). While more recent data is yet to be released, the trend is upward, and it’s very likely that in 2023, even more deaths will be attributable to air pollution." "According to health authorities in the country, more than 1.3 million people have already suffered from air pollution-related diseases in 2023. What makes this stat particularly staggering is that this data was published near the end of March – only three months into the year." https://breathesafeair.com/air-pollution-in-thailand/#Health_Effects_of_Air_Pollution

It will be a race to see who can get out of the country fastest after being criminally charged: --this drug and other crimes biker gang suspect, or --the child prostitution suspects from Pattaya, two of the three of whom have already fled... This Australian guy had better hurry! Maybe there will be a new "fast track" exit lane at Suvarnabhumi for arrested and charged alleged criminals who want to make a quick exit!

Unless he comes back again using someone else's passport, and Thai Immigration once again doesn't catch the fraud when he passes thru Immigration upon arrival....

The bizarre part of this is.... all the initial faux Thai outrage at the DW report for supposedly bringing Thailand and Pattaya to public disrepute... When in fact, the original raid on the Pattaya bar that found evidence of underage prostitution was conducted by THAI POLICE! and it was Thai police who arrested the British manager and the two customers, one German and one American.... And then publicized the whole thing to the local media here... So perhaps the faux outrage against DW is more than a bit misplaced! And then the irony of BJ talking about the documented case of alleged underage prostitution in Pattaya -- after Thai police officials and the locals in Pattaya regularly proclaim that they've found no prostitution of any kind occurring there.... PLEASE!!!!!

I watched an online version of the DW report last night... And in the version I viewed, at the very end, there was now an ending screen text message saying the German guy had been arrested by authorities in Germany and was going to face criminal charges there.

So that's an interesting Thai study...and it seems as though they ran two different studies within the same study -- one on preventing COVID infection, and the other on treating confirmed COVID infection. At the outset of the study, to get into the prevention part of the study, participants had to have a negative RT-PCR test for COVID, to ensure they weren't already infected. "The primary outcome of the prevention study was the proportion of participants with a positive RT-PCR within 14 days after enrollment among those with a negative RT-PCR result at enrollment in the mITT population." "Participants in the prevention study were instructed to collect an NP swab for the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen ... on Day 14 and whenever they developed new symptoms suggestive of COVID-19." "A high dose of ivermectin (400–600 µg/kg/d) for 3 days did not show a significant benefit for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection."

So you're talking about whether there have been any RCTs that have shown ivermectin has any value in preventing people from becoming infected with the coronavirus -- as opposed to clearly having been shown to have no value in treating COVID disease?

"Of all participants vaccinated before infection, 0.4% were diagnosed as having long COVID during follow-up, compared with 1.4% of their 290,030 unvaccinated peers, a nearly four-fold difference." https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/studies-suggest-even-one-vaccine-dose-may-cut-risk-long-covid

I've had contact lenses shipped from the U.S. to TH in the past via regular international mail (not private couriers like DHL) and had no problems. AFAIK, shipping lenses via WeShippingUSA shouldn't trigger any extra custom's duty or blocking of your item -- but if you want to pursue that with certainty, you could ask them specifically via their FB Messenger account.

"Thai students rank below average in science and maths – and much lower in reading." So what is it: Is it that too many Thais don't LIKE to read? or too many don't KNOW HOW to read very well?

I was outside in the afternoon and sweating as I went about my business outside... In the evening, it rained for a brief bit... barely long enough to open up an umbrella. Wasn't any "torrential rain" anywhere around my BKK neighborhood, not thus far.

But they're in the hospital and dying because of COVID...at least when their death certificates say so.

The first part I assume is more or less true... The second part is your unsourced and unsubstantiated nonsense. COVID: millions of older people have died without being counted "The WHO global estimates on excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic raise many uncomfortable truths about how we as a global community value the lives of older people and those in low- and middle-income countries. ... Many of those older people who died may have lived five, 10, 20 years or more – in one study published in the BMJ, additional years of life lost in 31 countries in 2020 alone were estimated at more than 28 million and concentrated among older people. The loss of these individuals to their families and communities is unquantifiable." https://reliefweb.int/report/world/covid-millions-older-people-have-died-without-being-counted

And of course, you're going to ignore the doctors' medical certificates that specifically find those classified as COVID deaths in fact died primarily due to COVID or with COVID as a contributing factor.

Heart-disease risk soars after COVID — even with a mild case Massive study shows a long-term, substantial rise in risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. 10 February 2022 "Even a mild case of COVID-19 can increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular problems for at least a year after diagnosis, a new study1 shows. Researchers found that rates of many conditions, such as heart failure and stroke, were substantially higher in people who had recovered from COVID-19 than in similar people who hadn’t had the disease." https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00403-0

ICMRA statement on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines (International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities) "Evidence from the more than 13 billions of vaccine doses given worldwide shows that COVID-19 vaccines have a very good safety profile in all age groups. The benefits of the approved vaccines far outweigh the possible risks." ... As for all medicines, reports of medical events after COVID-19 vaccination (suspected side effects) are collected and continuously evaluated by the authorities. These evaluations show that in most cases the medical events were not caused by the vaccine. ... False and misleading information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines on social media often exaggerates the frequency and severity of side effects. Misinformation also wrongly attributes unrelated medical events to the vaccines." https://icmra.info/drupal/strategicinitiatives/vaccines/safety_statement

There have been more than 13 BILLION COVID vaccine doses given in the world since they were first released. The relative number of deaths documented as related to COVID vaccination has been exceedingly tiny. The number of deaths from COVID has been huge, ranging from 7 million officially recorded vs estimates of actual COVID deaths approaching 20 million or more. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates Even now, according to the WHO, current official COVID deaths in the world are running at several thousand per month, and that's with a lot of countries no longer COVID deaths at all (only 43 out of 200+ did). "Globally, during the 28-day period from 23 October to 19 November 2023, 104 countries reported COVID-19 cases and 43 countries reported COVID-19 deaths. Note that this does not reflect the actual number of countries where cases or deaths are occurring, as a number of countries have stopped or changed frequency of reporting." https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20231124_covid-19_epi_update_161.pdf?sfvrsn=a23783d6_3&download=true Do the math. The current health risks from COVID vastly exceed the very rare risks associated with COVID vaccination, as virtually every public health agency in the world has attested.

A bogus new attack on COVID vaccines from Texas' least credible politician Los Angeles Times December 6, 2023 "In recent times, whenever a government lawsuit swears at common sense, at the facts and at the public interest, it has been a safe bet that Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton has his fingerprints on it. Sure enough, here comes Paxton with a lawsuit charging Pfizer Inc. with systematically misrepresenting the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to censor public discussion about it. ... There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation packed into the 54 pages of Paxton's legal complaint, some of it so nonsensical as to evoke laughter, starting with the fact that the reasons the pandemic got worse after the introduction of COVID vaccines had more to do with policies promoted by Paxton and his political cronies than with Pfizer." (more) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/column-bogus-attack-covid-vaccines-110023842.html

Studies suggest even one vaccine dose may cut risk of long COVID November 29, 2023 Two new analyses from Sweden and Pakistan published in BMJ highlight the benefits of partial or full COVID-19 vaccination in preventing persistent symptoms. Vaccination tied to 58% lower risk of long COVID In Sweden, University of Gothenburg researchers led an observational evaluation of the efficacy of primary COVID-19 vaccination (two doses followed by a booster) against long COVID, or post-COVID condition (PCC), among adults whose first infections were recorded in a national registry from December 2020 to February 2022. Average follow-up was 129 days. ... Of all participants vaccinated before infection, 0.4% were diagnosed as having long COVID during follow-up, compared with 1.4% of their 290,030 unvaccinated peers, a nearly four-fold difference." (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/studies-suggest-even-one-vaccine-dose-may-cut-risk-long-covid

November 22, 2023 "People vaccinated before their first case of COVID-19 are diagnosed with Long COVID almost four times less than unvaccinated people, suggests a large new study published Nov. 22 in the BMJ. ... The new study offers encouraging evidence that people who get vaccinated before their first COVID-19 case are at significantly lower risk of developing long-term symptoms like brain fog and fatigue, with each additional dose received prior to infection offering extra protection. A single pre-infection dose of one of the original COVID-19 vaccines reduced the risk of Long COVID by 21%, two doses by 59%, and three or more doses by 73%, the researchers estimated." (more) https://time.com/6338434/vaccination-long-covid-risk/

Kowa says ivermectin not effective in treating COVID-19 Oct 2, 2022 "A clinical trial was unable to prove the efficacy of the antiparasitic medicine ivermectin against coronavirus variants, according to Japanese drugmaker Kowa Co., which has indicated that it will no longer seek approval for the drug as a COVID-19 treatment. ... both the group given the drug and the one administered a placebo saw improvements in symptoms, meaning the trial did not show the drug’s efficacy over the placebo as a COVID-19 treatment." https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/10/02/national/science-health/kowa-ivermectin-covid-19/ AND No, Ivermectin Did Not Help Japan Bring Down Covid-19 Coronavirus Delta Surge Nov 27, 2021 "If you look at Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency’s list of Approved Medical Products for Covid-19, you’ll find stuff like remdesivir and baricitinib but no ivermectin. And none of these ivermectin-touting tweets seemed to be from real scientists and other experts from Japan. ... These ivermectin claims about Japan are just the latest in what’s become a septic tank of unsupported ivermectin claims on social media." https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/11/27/no-ivermectin-did-not-help-japan-bring-down-covid-19-coronavirus-delta-surge/?sh=5b3d3d122938

New England Journal of Medicine editorial August 18, 2022 Time to Stop Using Ineffective Covid-19 Drugs "Ivermectin and fluvoxamine, in particular, are still widely prescribed, even though evidence has been steadily accumulating to indicate that both treatments at acceptable doses are not effective for Covid-19.3-5 ... For ivermectin, a meta-analysis of 16 trials8 involving 2407 patients with both severe and nonsevere illness showed no reliable evidence of reductions in mechanical ventilation, hospital admission, duration of hospitalization, clinical severity, or mortality; in addition, the investigators found no effect related to the dose of ivermectin. In light of this available evidence of nonefficacy for ivermectin and fluvoxamine, how much evidence of nonefficacy is enough?" https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2209017

Same as the WHO and U.S. FDA's ongoing guidance re ivermectin: "The update also includes a strong recommendation against the use of ivermectin for patients with non-severe COVID-19. WHO continues to advise that in patients with severe or critical COVID-19, ivermectin should only be used in clinical trials." https://www.who.int/news/item/10-11-2023-who-updates-guidelines-on-treatments-for-covid-19 Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19 "The FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals." ... Currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19. ... There’s a lot of misinformation around, and you may have heard that it’s okay to take large doses of ivermectin. It is not okay." https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19

If the COVID vaccines prevent 10 or 20 or 30% of recipients from contracting COVID for some months post vaccination, that's 10 or 20 or 30% fewer people to potentially become infected / sick and capable of spreading the virus to others.... Any reduction is better than no reduction. Though the prevention levels for serious COVID illness/hospitalization from the vaccines are considerably higher than the example figures I used above for merely preventing any infection. For the recent bivalent COVID vaccines from fall 2022 to spring 2023 in the U.S.: "In this multistate analysis of 85,075 hospitalizations of persons with COVID-19–like illness, bivalent doses were 62% effective among adults without immunocompromising conditions...in preventing COVID-19–associated hospitalization during the first 7–59 days after vaccination. Waning was evident in adults without immunocompromising conditions from 60–179 days (2–6 months) after vaccination. VE was more sustained against critical illness (50% at 120–179 days after vaccination) in adults without immunocompromising conditions, which suggests that bivalent vaccines provide durable protection against the most severe outcomes from COVID-19." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7221a3.htm

Maybe you should catch up on just what the current differences are between what you've previously called the mild version of COVID and the current version of the flu. In general, you're far far far better off to catch the flu -- and always have been -- than to catch COVID, even the current version, as illustrated below: https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data-research/dashboard/illness-severity.html