Don't believe the hype about chaos

Word games

As an academic, I never cease to be amazed at the degree of groupthink among the intellectuals. Original thinking is considered to be original sin.

Recently, we had to consult with a new primary care physician (PCP). Our previous doctor had just retired after many years. Mrs. Surak was diagnosed with a peculiar illness: a parasitic infection of the base of her eyelashes, causing some inflammation in the eyes. The doctor who found this was an optometrist, who cannot prescribe medicine. He recommended speaking to our PCP.

We had a telemedicine appointment with the new PCP, a casual looking man with the demeanor of Mr. Holland from the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus, but more subdued. We explained the situation, and requested a prescription of ivermectin, a well-known anti-parasitic (anthelminthic) used worldwide for decades.

The PCP declined to write the prescription. He said he was aware of the “hype” around ivermectin, but had not seen any evidence that it is effective.

As a reminder, ivermectin is on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines. It has been prescribed billions of times. It is over the counter in many tropical countries. Its inventors won a Nobel Prize. There is plenty of evidence that it is effective as an anti-parasitic.

We were not asking for an off-label use, God forbid, of ivermectin as an anti-viral agent against COVID, despite the abundant evidence from meta-analysis that ivermectin is the most effective treatment in reducing COVID mortality when used prophylactically (hydroxychloroquine is the most effective treatment in reducing COVID mortality when used in early treatment once the illness begins). No, we were just asking to use an established anti-parasitic drug to treat a parasitic infection.

But the doctor had to do his virtue-signaling at my wife’s expense. Needless to say, we are already looking for a new PCP doctor. There are very few who are independent of the major medical systems. We love our functional medicine doctor, but she declines to do primary care.

I have been hearing a lot recently about the alleged “chaos” in America. My understanding is that started on January 20, 2025. For the preceding four years, everything was frozen in place. No chaos. Just ten million additional illegal aliens pouring through an open border, prosecution and imprisonment of opponents of the regime, race riots, men in women’s locker rooms, firing of people who dared to dissent from left-wing orthodoxy, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hamas invasion of Israel - but no chaos!

Now that President Trump is once again enforcing the border and our immigration laws, exercising his Constitutional authority as the Chief Executive, protecting female athletes, and so on - now there is chaos. It must be distressing indeed for the GAME (government-academia-media-entertainment) complex, to be set back upon their heels, to lose the prerogatives they thought they owned in perpetuity.

I believe today is the day of an instructional webinar at the college, designed to educate the community about how to protect the illegal aliens in our midst. It would be fitting if the “progressive” Democrat president of the institution stood in the door of the building to block federal agents, echoing George Wallace (another Democrat) over 50 years ago.

EDIT: here is some chaos at Columbia University, courtesy of the Democrat party.

Anti-Israel agitators storm Barnard College building in protest of student expulsions